Entropy and evolution

One of the oldest canards in the creationists' book is the claim that evolution must be false because it violates the second law of thermodynamics, or the principle that, as they put it, everything must go from order to disorder. One of the more persistent perpetrators of this kind of sloppy thinking is Henry Morris, and few creationists today seem able to get beyond this error.

Remember this tendency from order to disorder applies to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from disorder to order?" Perhaps the evolutionist can ultimately find an answer to this question, but he at least should not ignore it, as most evolutionists do.

Especially is such a question vital, when we are thinking of evolution as a growth process on the grand scale from atom to Adam and from particle to people. This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.

As most biologists get a fair amount of training in chemistry, I'm afraid he's wrong on one bit of slander there: we do not ignore entropy, and are in fact better informed on it than most creationists, as is clearly shown by their continued use of this bad argument. I usually rebut this claim about the second law in a qualitative way, and by example — it's obvious that the second law does not state that nothing can ever increase in order, but only that an decrease in one part must be accompanied by a greater increase in entropy in another. Two gametes, for instance, can fuse and begin a complicated process in development that represents a long-term local decrease in entropy, but at the same time that embryo is pumping heat out into its environment and increasing the entropy of the surrounding bit of the world.

It's a very bad argument they are making, but let's consider just the last sentence of the quote above.

This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.

A "gigantic increase in order and complexity" … how interesting. How much of an increase? Can we get some numbers for that?

Daniel Styer has published an eminently useful article on "Entropy and Evolution" that does exactly that — he makes some quantitative estimates of how much entropy might be decreased by the process of evolution. I knew we kept physicists around for something; they are so useful for filling in the tricky details.

The article nicely summarizes the general problems with the creationist claim. They confuse the metaphor of 'disorder' for the actual phenomenon of entropy; they seem to have an absolutist notion that the second law prohibits all decreases in entropy; and they generally lack any quantitative notion of how entropy actually works. The cool part of this particular article, though, is that he makes an estimate of exactly how much entropy is decreased by the process of evolution.

First he estimates, very generously, how much entropy is decreased per individual. If we assume each individual is 1000 times "more improbable" than its ancestor one century ago, that is, that we are specified a thousand times more precisely than our great-grandparents (obviously a ludicrously high over-estimate, but he's trying to give every advantage to the creationists here), then we can describe the reduction in the number of microstates in the modern organism as:

Now I'm strolling into dangerous ground for us poor biologists, since this is a mathematical argument, but really, this is simple enough for me to understand. We know the statistical definition of entropy:

In the formula above, kB is the Boltzmann constant. We can just plug in our estimated (grossly overestimated!) value for Ω, have fun with a little algebra, and presto, a measure of the change in entropy per individual per century emerges.

Centuries are awkward units, so Styer converts that to something more conventional: the entropy change per second is -3.02 x 10-30 J/K. There are, of course, a lot of individual organisms on the planet, so that number needs to be multiplied by the total number of evolving organism, which, again, we charitably overestimate at 1032, most of which are prokaryotes, of course. The final result is a number that tells us the total change in entropy of the planet caused by evolution each second:

-302 J/K

What does that number mean? We need a context. Styer also estimates the Earth's total entropy throughput per second, that is, the total flux involved from absorption of the sun's energy and re-radiation of heat out into space. It's a slightly bigger number:

420 x 1012 J/K

To spell it out, there's about a trillion times more entropy flux available than is required for evolution. The degree by which earth's entropy is reduced by the action of evolutionary processes is miniscule relative to the amount that the entropy of the cosmic microwave background is increased.

This is very cool and very clear. I'm folding up my copy of Styer's paper and tucking it into my copy of The Counter-Creationism Handbook, where it will come in handy.

More like this

I'm sure we're all familiar with the creationist chestnut that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. For people with a basic science education it is something of a litmus test. As soon as you hear someone make this argument you can be certain that you are dealing with a crank. You…

One of the great frustrations in responding to creationist literature is their penchant for using technical sounding jargon in ways no scientist would recognize. A good example is their use of the word “information.” This word has a variety of meanings within mathematics, but creationists usually…

Over at Uncommon Descent, there's a bit of a kerfuffle going on about the second law of thermodynamics. Salvador Cordova got the ball rolling back in July with this barn-burner of a post excoriating his fellow ID proponent Granville Sewell for making bad thermodynamical arguments:
ID proponents…

Ever since Darwin, there has been one main argument against evolution. I am referring to the general feeling that things don't naturally get more complex over time. Evolution says that novel structures and functionalities can evolve through entirely natural means, but that is counter to intuition…

I usually rebut this claim about the second law in a qualitative way, and by example...

Sarcastro is right -- the simplest rebuttal is to point out that the Second Law applies to a closed system. I don't know why creationists don't get that; probably they just hope that their target audience won't pick up on it.

That said, great post about a great topic! I'm glad the physicists (among whom I used to be numbered) are proving useful.

For those of us interested in reading the original paper, I found it here [PDF].

All self respecting scientists know the entropy argument was bunk, but it is always nice to see some numerical values. Twelve orders of magnitude. Well, this will make the creationist argument a trillion times more silly than before, but what do they care? The entropy lie will still be repeated.

The biggest obstacle for the cretinists seems to be, as has been stated a million times before, local vs. total decreases in entropy. If there couldn't be local decreases in entropy, then how could we ever build a bridge, skyscraper, type a letter, or do anything for that matter? Physics would be violated any time us humans tried to create complexity in this world, and surely the godbots don't think this is happening, right?

Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about,
you're now down with a discount.

Entropy is always increasing complexity, some of which does show up in evolution as variety (though natural selection ruthlessly hacks away at much variation). Increasing order, in fact, is not something that we see in evolution, or at least it can't be quantified as such.

Of course Granville Stewart yammers on about all this, making the factual point that the sun's input of energy doesn't mean that just anything can happen--like a PC randomly self-assembling over the time the earth has existed. Well of course that's true, but evolution is readily fueled by the sun's input.

One of the oldest canards in the creationists' book is the claim that evolution must be false because it violates the second law of thermodynamics, or the principle that, as they put it, everything must go from order to disorder.

It does? That means life is impossible.

1. Farmers supposedly plant seeds every spring. These little oblong objects put in the dirt turn into corn, wheat, and other plants which we eat, photosynthetic, self reproducing, evolving machines that turn sunlight, CO2, and water into organized matter. Obvious fairy tale.

2. Supposedly in animals and higher primates (humans), two haploid cells fuse to form a zygote. 20 years later, the zygote weighs 160 lbs and wants more money for college and plans to fuse haploid cells with some other multikilogram higher primate to make more zygotes. Another fairy tale that violates the second law and clearly impossible.

Darn it, that's a nice little calculation. Wish I had thought of doing it first.

It's not strictly right, as you point out, as he's trying to give the creationists every benefit. But there is a problem in identifying the "reduction in the number of microstates" from one generation to another, because it's not precisely the same degrees of freedom being re-arranged. I wonder if it's possible to fix that part up just a bit. (You'd get the same conclusion, obviously.)

It's probably been excerpted on FSTDT or similar (I'm too lazy to look right now), but some years ago a fundie-nutter argued the closed constraint was obviously bunk because if it was true, then the Earth violated the law because there'd have to be a gigantic source of energy somewhere, and there clearly isn't. I swear I'm not making this up...!

raven@10: Exactly! If you read discussions of extra-terrestrial life (say Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot) "life" is more or less defined as "that which locally pumps away entropy" (at least if we treat machines as extensions of the life forms that built them). So, for example, if we found a planet with oxygen and methane in the atmosphere, whatever was replenishing them (however odd to us) would be worth of the name "life".

One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

I've never actually had a creationist try to use the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as an argument against evolution. Perhaps I've only argued with a better class of nutter, 'cause all it really shows is that the person knows next to nothing about entropy. Generally, I suspect I'd take it as a good indication that any discussion was a waste of my time.

This doesn't affect the argument at all, but the Earth's radiation doesn't go into the cosmic microwave background (the field of photons permeating the universe that have not interacted with anything since the universe became transparent 300ky after the Big Bang), it just goes into the generic photon background. Aliens with large infrared telescopes could observe these photons to determine the Earth's temperature and maybe get some spectral information about it. Recent experiments have used space probes to look at the Earth's radiation from far away to see if the signatures of life can be picked out. That might give us a good idea what to look for when examining exoplanets.

Although intended to illustrate a much different point about thermodynamics, Drexler's Engines of Creation contains an excellent counterexample to the "disorder always increases" myth, which is simple enough that even a creationist might be able to understand it:

Imagine a bottle having a bottom with a partition, dividing it into two basins. In one sits salt, in the other sits water. A cork plugs the bottle's neck: this closes the system... The bottle's contents are in an organized state: their material entropy is not at a maximum--yet.

Now, pick up the bottle and shake it. Slosh the water into the other basin, swirl it around, dissolve the salt, increase the entropy--go wild!

...take the bottle and tip it, draining the salty water into one basin. This should make no difference, since the system remains closed. Now set the bottle upright, placing the saltwater side in sunlight and the empty side in shade. Light shines in and heat leaks out, but the system remains as closed as the Earth itself. But watch--the sunlight evaporates water, which condenses in the shade! Fresh water slowly fills the empty basin, leaving the salt behind.

In the space of a few words, he more or less accepts the validity of physics, chemistry, biology and even geology as sciences, and of course he is upholding the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the basis for his argument.

So he seems to be supporting the scientific method and (most of) its cumulative achievements. But evolution - oh no!

what you might not know, is that the fruitbat who came up with that hilarious statement did manage to add some more inepsies later on, after someone pointed out that the sun was such a source of energy :

Sorry, my mistake guys, I didn't explain why the Sun doesn't count. Here is the info on that from ChristianAnswers.net:

Is Energy the Key?
To create any kind of upward, complex organization in a closed system requires outside energy and outside information. Evolutionists maintain that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not prevent Evolution on Earth, since this planet receives outside energy from the Sun. Thus, they suggest that the Sun's energy helped create the life of our beautiful planet. However, is the simple addition of energy all that is needed to accomplish this great feat?

Compare a living plant with a dead one. Can the simple addition of energy make a completely dead plant live?

A dead plant contains the same basic structures as a living plant. It once used the Sun's energy to temporarily increase its order and grow and produce stems, leaves, roots, and flowers - all beginning from a single seed.

If there is actually a powerful Evolutionary force at work in the universe, and if the open system of Earth makes all the difference, why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like)?

What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.

You were born perfect, now I don't mean perfect like muscly body and everything is the "normal" conditions. I mean perfect as in you haven't sinned. I doubt that anybody has come out of their mother and shouted the f word.

Lack of peer review is a unifying feature of pseudosciences. In this regard creationism is indistinguishable from astrology , homeopathy, etc. Effective peer review would cause all these "fields" to quickly disappear.

AS IF a creationist would have any hope of understanding entropy calculations!

The simpler path would just be to point out to them that their second-law argument would also prove that an embryo could never increase in complexity to become an adult. Either their argument is flawed, or we don't exist.

In the space of a few words, he more or less accepts the validity of physics, chemistry, biology and even geology as sciences, and of course he is upholding the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the basis for his argument.

So he seems to be supporting the scientific method and (most of) its cumulative achievements. But evolution - oh no!

A bit selective, wouldn't you say?

This has always bothered me, too. I've always wanted to point them at a bunch of Perpetual Motion nutters and say, "these guys think thermodynamics is bunk, so there goes your argument."

Boltzmann Constant. Named after Ludwig Boltzmann I believe. My favourite scientist, way ahead of his time. A tragic story too, if you care to look it up - Wikipedia describes him well. Statistical entropy is a cool theory (if you'll excuse the nerdy pun).

why did the author pick the factor of a 1000 as the ratio of the initial and final entropies? the author writes:

"I regard this as a very generous rate of evolution, but you may make your own assumption."

hmmm...let's say that the final state is ONE BILLION times as improbable!!! heh, heh, heh...(evil scientist laugh)

in the calculation, we replace 10^-3 with 10^-9 and get

k*ln(10^-9)=k(-20.7233)= 3* k(-6.91) = 3 times authors calculation.

so, by increasing the improbability factor from 1000 to 1 billion, you only change the amount of entropy flux by a factor of 3, which is still much much less than the available entropy flux on the earth.

with this in mind, one might ask oneself if there is so much entropy flux available why don't we see advanced species like sharks with frickin'laser beams? how come evolution moves so slowly.

I once saw a similar sort of argument about William Shakespeare and the plays that he had written -- how does the entropy decrease of composing his plays compare to the entropy increase of his metabolism?

We can get a hint by considering the number of bits needed to write down his entire collective works. Project Gutenberg has a collection of his works that is a total of 5458199 bytes of plain-text file. Each byte has 8 bits, making 32749194 bits.

William Shakespeare likely ate about 2000 food calories / day, which is 100 watts of energy consumption. About 20% of it would be used by his brain; that is 20 watts. His body temperature was 37 C or 98.6 F, meaning that his brain produced metabolic entropy at 0.065 (joules/K)/s.

This, a few seconds of metabolism result in an entropy gain MUCH greater than the entropy loss of all his works.

Another word about Boltzmann and then I'll shut up! From the wikipedia article:

Boltzmann had a tremendous admiration for Darwin and he wished to extend Darwinism from biological to cultural evolution. In fact he considered biological and cultural evolution as one and the same things. ... In short, cultural evolution was a physical process taking place in the brain. Boltzmann included ethics in the ideas which developed in this fashion

Love this stuff. Reminds me of how woo-woo types love to latch on to the uncertainty principle, and bloviate endlessly and irrelevantly. But when you go back to the science, and look at the equations, you realize that not only do scientists know what they don't know, they can tell you exactly how big it is.

These creationists imply that wherever entropy decreases God is defying physics to perform a miracle. He must be so busy building each snowflake from random water molecules, and grabbing CO2 and H2O molecules to stack into oak trees and dandelions and the like. How does he find time for managing the rest of the universe and hating gays?

That's the source, from what I can tell. Naturally, said fundie-nutter knew all about the sun, and clarified his position thusly:

Sorry, my mistake guys, I didn't explain why the Sun doesn't count. Here is the info on that from ChristianAnswers.net:

Is Energy the Key?
To create any kind of upward, complex organization in a closed system requires outside energy and outside information. Evolutionists maintain that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not prevent Evolution on Earth, since this planet receives outside energy from the Sun. Thus, they suggest that the Sun's energy helped create the life of our beautiful planet. However, is the simple addition of energy all that is needed to accomplish this great feat?

Compare a living plant with a dead one. Can the simple addition of energy make a completely dead plant live?

A dead plant contains the same basic structures as a living plant. It once used the Sun's energy to temporarily increase its order and grow and produce stems, leaves, roots, and flowers - all beginning from a single seed.

If there is actually a powerful Evolutionary force at work in the universe, and if the open system of Earth makes all the difference, why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like)?

What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.

You were born perfect, now I don't mean perfect like muscly body and everything is the "normal" conditions. I mean perfect as in you haven't sinned. I doubt that anybody has come out of their mother and shouted the f word.

In response to Crimson King: Of course we use science to prove you wrong, but of course you just deny it. Jesus is the son of God so therefore can perform miracles. Raising from the dead is nothing short of a miracle. Creationists have their essential beliefs about God, and take those views and put them to use when they find scientific evidence. Those views more than always agree with the evidence.

Which I guess can be summarized as: if the Sun can't perform miracles and bring plants back to life, then evolution can't occur.

The 2nd Law argument is obviously bunk. I mean good lord: even condensation entails entropy reduction! But - just being the devil's advocate here - wouldn't the creationist respond that the biggest reduction in entropy occurs in going from inanimate matter to living thing? Doesn't the argument beg the question when we can't say exactly how that happened or how long it took? There seems to be a big difference in entropy between a prokaryote and a crystal. This may be a different issue than the one of whether evolution can occur, but it is related.
The 2nd Law argument is also used to "refute" the Big Bang theory. Again, it is the initial state that is tricky. "Let there be light" is not too different a theory. I mean, except for God and stuff.

Nope QDA. Plenty of people accept the fact of evolution without ever giving up their superstitions. They just usually fold evolution into whatever "sacred" beliefs they have. The biblical story of "creation" is just so silly, how could they not?

Does acceptance of the scientific validity of evolutionary theory necessitate denying that a God might exist?

Certainly not, at least not without the rest of science providing the same "agnostic" message as evolution does.

Evolutionary science simply fails to support the claim that God exists, along with the other divisions of science.

If, say, meteorology indicated a rational mind behind weather, the silence of evolution would do nothing to gainsay the evidence provided by meteorology. Likewise with cosmology.

The only reason evolutionary theory is supposed to be especially contrary to the idea of God is that religious folk have held onto life as "proof" of God in a more central manner, and for longer, than they claimed, for instance, that the weather was due to God/the gods. Then came Darwin, and he was blamed for "God's death," when theist Newton is at least as responsible--not least because evolution brings biology into the same realm of causation as the "celestial spheres" are, hence it is basically the extension of classical physics (with a smatter of QM) into biology.

Does acceptance of the scientific validity of evolutionary theory necessitate denying that a God might exist?

No it says nothing about it. Now reaching that conclusion after understanding and accepting the validity of the Theory of Evolution and weighing it with a multitude of other bits of data, that's another thing.

In the space of a few words, he more or less accepts the validity of physics, chemistry, biology and even geology as sciences, and of course he is upholding the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the basis for his argument.
So he seems to be supporting the scientific method and (most of) its cumulative achievements. But evolution - oh no!
A bit selective, wouldn't you say?

Ah, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a LAW, created by God, while the theory of evolution is merely a theory, created by man.

You were born perfect, now I don't mean perfect like muscly body and everything is the "normal" conditions. I mean perfect as in perfectly atheistic. I doubt that anybody has come out of their mother and shouted the g word.

Boltzmann Constant. Named after Ludwig Boltzmann I believe. My favourite scientist, way ahead of his time. A tragic story too, if you care to look it up

In (IIRC) Goodstein's graduate text on stat mech, there's a nice riff to the effect that the study of this stuff induces depression. It describes Boltzmann's work on the subject and his subsequent suicide. Ditto for Paul Ehrenfest. Then, to encourage the student, there's something like "Now it's our turn to study statistical mechanics."

Sigh. I don't get the math (never having gotten past high school third year algebra), but then, I have the security of relying on experts who know what they are talking about. Having some expertise in other fields prompts me to mention that minuscule is spelled minuscule. You're welcome.

I am i bit annoyed I did not look into Pharyngula earlier today. That awesomestnerd bit is really the bestest quote evar!!!!!1!one It's a bit like a bullet stuck in my skull. I *feel* that quote from time to time moving in my head, especially when someone mentions evolution and entropy. It's a highlight of ignorance, kind like ignoring a bat when hit by it.

Thanks for the page. Looks like I got back from vacation just in time. I am at work right now so my comment will be brief. Consider this strawman statement:

they [creationists] seem to have an absolutist notion that the second law prohibits all decreases in entropy;

Of course creationists understand that entropy can decrease. We also understand that the earth is not a closed system. Some of us are even smart enough to wear sunscreen to reduce our risk of skin cancer.

Exactly! Here we can employ complexity theory and information theory in a framework of systems-thinking to once and for all present a fatal argument against that creotard nonsense. Life on earth is a self-organizing system without teleology. The entropy can decrease within the (interest-relative) boundaries of the system "earth", more specifically "life on earth", there can be a local increase in order/systematic complexity through self-organization, which we know occurs naturally (for more see Self-Organisation at Scholarpedia). There is always at least one system of which the system with local increase in order and complexity is a real subsystem, in which the entropy increases over time. And any system, even the most complex systems will "gravitate" in their behaviour towards certain attractors - these attractors can be very complex, and thus it is entirely explicable that such complex systems as life on earth or even human mental activity should exist - this does not conflict with thermodynamics because the systems gravitate to specific attractors in their energy-state and there is always at least one system that includes the initial one where the entropy increases.

I mean, I can see how the creotard idiot might impress someone who is generally hostile to evolution and might have heard about "thermodynamics" and "entropy" fleetingly. But surely it is impossible to be aware of the above facts about entropy and complex systems and still believe that evolution is thermodynamically impossible? Which leaves it to people like PZ, Daniel Styer and us to educate the people we meet - "immunize" them against creationist nonsense. I only wish more people took an interest in the world as understood by science...

When I was an undergraduate at the University of California at Davis, around 1970, a creationist by the name of Duane T. Gish gave a lecture in which he made the same claim about 2nd Thermo. He was corrected on it by one of the physics professors in the audience. These people don't seem to learn, do they?

QDA@55,
A "troll" is someone who comments on a blog simply to annoy or waste time, not to make a contribution to the discussion or ask a sincere question, so on the evidence so far you're not one - and have been answered politely. Incidentally, the original derivation of the term is apparently from a method of rod-and-line fishing, not from the mythical ugly creature that lurks under bridges.

And of course, there is still no good measure for entropy of far-from-equilibrium systems!

That's the nailer that everyone pretends isn't there --- most measures of entropy, all the way to grand canonical, assume close-to-equilibrium conditions. On top of that, almost every real calculation of entry drops half the dimensions of that calculation -- the distribution of velocities.

So, not only is there a sufficient energy gradient to support the "negentropy" of life --- but in fact that negentropy might not exist at all, but is purely an artifact of improper entropy calculations!

We can employ complexity theory and information theory in a framework of systems-thinking to once and for all present a fatal argument against that creotard nonsense. Life on earth is a self-organizing system without teleology. The entropy can decrease within the (interest-relative) boundaries of the system "earth", more specifically "life on earth", there can be a local increase in order/systematic complexity through self-organization, which we know occurs naturally (for more see Self-Organisation at Scholarpedia). There is always at least one system of which the system with local increase in order and complexity is a real subsystem, in which the entropy increases over time. And any system, even the most complex systems will "gravitate" in their behaviour towards certain attractors - these attractors can be very complex, and thus it is entirely explicable that such complex systems as life on earth or even human mental activity should exist - this does not conflict with thermodynamics because the systems gravitate to specific attractors in their energy-state and there is always at least one system that includes the initial one where the entropy increases.

And since these systems are so complex as to be unpredictable without running a complete facsimile (like cellular automata, see Complex Systems at Scholarpedia and Cellular Automata on Wikipedia), we know with certainty that even deism or "god-guided evolution" is wrong because the only way god could have planned for any of what happens in life on earth today is if he already ran exactly this universe before he did ours... what a pathetic god that would be.

I mean, I can see how the creotard might impress someone who is generally hostile to evolution and might have heard about "thermodynamics" and "entropy" fleetingly. But surely it is impossible to be aware of the above facts about entropy and complex systems and still believe that evolution is thermodynamically impossible? Which leaves it to people like PZ, Daniel Styer and us to educate the people we meet - "immunize" them against creationist nonsense. I only wish more people took an interest in the world as understood by science...

Not only does science not show that evolution is incompatible with theormodynamics, all of science - especially systems theory, biology, complexity theory, information theory - show that Theism and even Deism are incompatible with the universe as we understand it scientifically and rationally.

...and by the way... which measure of entropy or complexity are these creationists talking about? Oh that's right... they haven't got a clue because they didn't think it through... they're just spouting pseudo-scientific bullshit.

When we employ the concept of Kolmogorov-complexity, we can clearly see that even very complex systems like neural networks, individual neurons or even an individual in thermodynmaic exchange with its environment over the course of its history will "gravitate" towards energetically relatively more stable points, ie it will move - energetically - on a gradient towards some attractors of lower-energy states for the system. We can even describe the learning of a neural network (ie learning as it occurs in creatures with brains, like us), and the learning of an individual neuron in a network in terms of entropy - this model is called "Boltzmann Learning". - And the heat-dissipation of even such complex processes of learning within a biological brain in context with its environment - even things as complex and "improbable" as this always dissipate enough heat not to make it impossible for the universe as a whole to move towards increased entropy... not even the entropy in the solar-system as a whole is increased much by it... as the paper PZ introduces explains. The kolmogorov-complexity of the complex, biofunctional systems is lower than that of total chaos because it observes patterns in which it transduces entropy/information... we have biofunctionality - the bifurcation of the complex thermodynamic system of life on earth... this is all perfectly within the grasp of science.

I find it so utterly abominable when creationists use pseudo-scientific thinking to make an impression on those who perhaps could be educated about the actual state of affairs, and how little these idiots know of real science.

Damn... sorry bout that double-post. I accidentally pressed post shortly before I pressed "Preview", then made the corrections and then re-submitted it since I didn't think it got through the first time... my browser was very slow and the submission of the preview timed out at my first attempt...

For sure. That's what they love to do. They cherry-pick parts of a complex scientific issue and poorly apply it as support for their delusions. It's complete dishonesty. They don't actually to the research. They're satisfied with a piss-poor supposition that they can tell their echo-chamber followers "disproves" evolution (or "proves" their deity), and maybe even let the real scientists chase a red-herring.

They have the scientific community at a disadvantage in that they can be sloppy and imprecise - and still manage to speak from authority. Of course, science has them at a disadvantage because science deals with reality, which always seems to decisively dismantle their poorly constructed notions.

They have the scientific community at a disadvantage in that they can be sloppy and imprecise - and still manage to speak from authority. Of course, science has them at a disadvantage because science deals with reality, which always seems to decisively dismantle their poorly constructed notions.

If things are getting disordered as cretinists argue then surely they must do all they can to preserve what order we have left in the genome? Therefore they must weed out the undesirable elements and stop them reproducing as they are only contributing to this "disorder". Even better give them no chance at all to contribute to this disorder by rounding them up and putting them into special "safe" places. And if that doesn't work, well, "special" action might be called for. Anybody for the New (dis)Order?

Sarcastro is right -- the simplest rebuttal is to point out that the Second Law applies to a closed system. I don't know why creationists don't get that;

Maybe because it's not true.

Here is the Kelvin statement of the 2nd Law:

"It is not possible to create a system in which the sole result is the addition of heat and its complete conversion to work"

Notice that there is nothing in this statement about open or closed systems.

Given this statement, I can readily show that, for a closed system, dS > 0 for a spontaneous process. However, the SLoT also applies to everything, everywhere. It's just that the implications of the SLoT in an open-system are very different from those in a closed system. Mathematically, the best statement of the SLoT is the Clausius inequality, TdS > dq (I can derive this using the Kelvin statement).

So in the end, while it is definately true that creationists haven't got a clue about the SLoT, it is also important that we counter them with an accurate version.

It is true that the requirement that entropy must increase only applies to a closed system, and you can correctly point that out. But don't go about claiming the 2nd law "doesn't apply." It most certainly does.

So, if entropy affects all real processes, is god less powerful now than any point in the past? If so, then god will end up so much less powerful in the future, we can ignore it safely. If god isn't affected by entropy, by the creationist's logic, god isn't real...

That's the nailer that everyone pretends isn't there --- most measures of entropy, all the way to grand canonical, assume close-to-equilibrium conditions. - frog@77

There's an article in November's Sci. Am. by J. Miguel Rubi, about extending applications of the Second Law to far-from-equilibrium systems. If any thermodynamicists have read it, I'd be interested in an opinion.

The thing is, the boundaries of any system (especially more more complex systems) are always interest-relative - there is no clear boundary, the boundary is defined by the property or properties according to which the observer distinguishes the system. Except - that is - for the universe as a whole. (Or perhaps multiverse - leave that one to the cosmologists) The universe/multiverse is necessarily all-encompassing - by the very definition of the term. And as such it is the only real system with non-interest-relative boundaries, and since it is complete, ie contains all other systems (where there are as many arbitrary subsystems as there are elements in the power-set of the set of all the constituents of the universe), it is only system which does not have information/energy-exchange with another... as long as the total entropy of everything together doesn't tend to decrease, thermodynamics is not violated.

And in any complex system you can arbitrarily define a subsystem whose entropy decreases, simply by picking out the spacetime-volume where locally the order increases while globally the entropy increases. So it is no surprise that we should find such pockets of low entropy - in fact, as we know, it's not surprising that we should exists in such a pocket of low entropy... only there can we exist.

The entropy argument is useful in one sense, anyone who uses it you know has limited knowledge of science and if they're above college age you know they don't WANT to understand either. It's a flag indicating there's nothing you can do to them to change their minds. The best you can do is humiliate them into silence by revealing their ignorance. As I told one of these jokers, "If you bothered to go to physics class in school and pay attention, you'd remember the 'closed system' part of the second law of thermodynamics." That shut him up rather quickly.

boundary is defined by the property or properties according to which the observer distinguishes the system. Except - that is - for the universe as a whole.

Interesting comments, MPhil.

Which leads to my next observation: Assuming that we consider the universe to be a closed system, we can then say that an implication of the 2nd law is that the entropy of the "universe" must increase, right? Interestingly, that is only true because of the expanding universe. If the universe were collapsing (dV < 0), then I can show that for any process, the total entropy of the universe would have to decrease (although there could be differences in local systems).

You were born perfect, now I don't mean perfect like muscly body and everything is the "normal" conditions. I mean perfect as in you haven't sinned. I doubt that anybody has come out of their mother and shouted the f word.

This guy doesn't even know his own religion's theology! What ever happened to Original Sin, hunh?

I seem to vaguely remember something like that. And surely, if we "travelled" through spacetime in the opposite direction for the entire history of the universe, we would observe such things as exhaust fumes going back into the engine etc... and temporally locally there would be a drastic decrease in entropy - but we'd end up with the big bang, the initial conditions... and as we know, as we approach the big-bang, travelling backwards in time in a collapsing universe - the immense heat means a very high kolmogorov-complexity, no real order, high entropy, no complex subsystems. Neither at the beginning nor at the end of universe from our view of the direction-of-time have complex subsystems... only in the middle do we have these. Neither heat-death nor condensation at the big-bang allow for complexity. As such, the overall tendency is there because of inflation - but in a reversed space-time, a collapsing spacetime, we would also "end up" without order.

Im confused about which entropy we are talking about. The 2nd law applys to thermodynamic entropy, but the Boltzman stuff is statistical entropy. The 2nd law doesnt say 'disorder increases' at all, rather its a mathematical statement of the usable heat energy that remains after a process.

302 J/K every second? That's the same units as thermal conductance (W/K). If so, then wouldn't it be correct to say that evolution has about a thermal conductance somewhere between Portland Cement (0.29 W/mK) and dry sand (0.35 W/mK)?

I've heard this line before, but I will admit I don't really understand the third one. There are different ways of stating the third law, often involving the Nernst heat theorem and whatnot, but a common concise statement is, "The entropy of a perfect crystal is zero at zero kelvin."

Posted by: rob @ 41 "... with this in mind, one might ask oneself if there is so much entropy flux available why don't we see advanced species like sharks with frickin'laser beams? how come evolution moves so slowly."

We may eventually, if people or sharks don't go extinct first. It all takes time and there is several billion years yet to go before our sun goes nova.

Of course, the sad part of all this is that such a journal article is even necessary.

My mother took her Mech.E. degree in the 1940s. When I was young I used to look at the pretty color plates in her old textbooks and try to figure out what they were about. Presumably as a result, the qualitative laws of thermodynamics seem like the tritest common sense to me. I finally understood(ish) classical phase space after reading a Sci. Am. article some time in the 70s or 80s.

Now, I can't be all that exceptional. We need to get some better physics (yes, physics - sorry) into K-12 classrooms in the hope that others will absorb the principles as "trite common sense."

The calculations are another matter, but not everyone needs to actually perform them.

Slightly OT - I was about to despair of seeing any more science posts on here; sorry for doubting you, PZ!

Not a scientist, as you will shortly be able to tell...
I thought that a singularity was the highest form of order, and that increasing complexity was therefore an increase in disorder, no matter how well it appeared organized? Is this totally wrong, or as a scientific moron, am I just simplifying things to the point of unhelpful?

Also, is there a reading list knocking around along the lines of science for total beginners who don't want to read books aimed at 5 year olds?

Complex systems which can be described as performing certain functions - ie automata-theoretic models (non-deterministic finite automata) of systems (we can view an organism as some form of automaton, and even life on earth as a general phenomenon) can be described with lower kolmogorov-complexity than complete chaos - we can describe the algorithmically, give a function which the system observes in a certain respect... for a completely chaotic system in contrast to a more ordered system like a brain or life on earth versus a chaotic distribution of particles over time in a certain space, the kolmogorov-complexity will always be higher. Even in an ideally minimal (non-redundant or pleonastic) language the description of a system like the universe entering heat death or the approaching the big-bang (backwards in time) will always require a more extensive description - since a complex functional system (like an eye, a pocket calculator, a brain or a PC) is ordered in virtue of being describable as performing a certain function (which can also be expressed in purely thermodynamic/information-theoretic terms)... I am currently doing research on this for the application in my master's thesis in neurophilosophy/philosophy of mind (I'm a student of formal logic, formal meta-science and philosophy, specializing on the philosophy of mind, Naturalism vs Dualism/"Supernaturalism", mind-brain relation)... this last bit of information just to explain the context of my posts...

The law actually refers to an asymptotic process, effectively saying that zero K cannot be achieved by a finite number of processes. I assume that achieving zero K is effectively "getting out of the game".

"...why don't we see advanced species like sharks with frickin'laser beams?"

If you consider human acts as a function of Nature, then sharks with laser beams is no problem. It's something that can be easily done. Silliness aside, applied intelligence can affect entropy. Taking that one step further is when evolution creates a self-sustaining, self-replicating, self-improving AI - albeit by human acts. That's what's next.

Complex systems which can be described as performing certain functions - ie automata-theoretic models (non-deterministic finite automata) of systems (we can view an organism as some form of automaton, and even life on earth as a general phenomenon) can be described with lower kolmogorov-complexity than complete chaos - we can describe the algorithmically, give a function which the system observes in a certain respect... for a completely chaotic system in contrast to a more ordered system like a brain or life on earth versus a chaotic distribution of particles over time in a certain space, the kolmogorov-complexity will always be higher. Even in an ideally minimal (non-redundant or pleonastic) language the description of a system like the universe entering heat death or the approaching the big-bang (backwards in time) will always require a more extensive description - since a complex functional system (like an eye, a pocket calculator, a brain or a PC) is ordered in virtue of being describable as performing a certain function (which can also be expressed in purely thermodynamic/information-theoretic terms)... I am currently doing research on this for the application in my master's thesis in neurophilosophy/philosophy of mind (I'm a student of formal logic, formal meta-science and philosophy, specializing on the philosophy of mind, Naturalism vs Dualism/"Supernaturalism", mind-brain relation)... this last bit of information just to explain the context of my posts...

"...and that increasing complexity was therefore an increase in disorder, no matter how well it appeared organized?"

Order & disorder are loaded terms. They place a value-judgment. Using neutral terminology helps with the precision. However, using complexity to describe systems can be trick. Regarding geometric distributions of objects, it can be said there are 2 kinds of complexity (or order), grouping order, and symmetry order. As an example, the distribution of checker-pieces at the beginning of the game is symmetry order - reds on ones side, blacks on the other. An even distribution of red and black pieces over the board is symmetry order. It would seem that it could be described that the Universe is going from grouping order (lumpy) to symmetry order (smooth).

Damn - another double post. Again Pharyngula told me first that my comment would not be posted because I had already posted many in such short time - so I should try again later. I did - and get another double-post. I'm really sorry, people - I really don't mean to spam... it seems there's something wrong with my connections. My dlan has been acting up lately. Again, - I'm really sorry, folks!

On the subject of thermodynamic vs statistic entropy/disorder... since all information must be "embodied" somewhere - and every structure/system that isn't totally random/chaotic under any formal description of entropy/order/complexity also "embodies" some information (I think information has become an accepted quantity in the natural science, thanks to applied mathematics in information-theory, systems theory etc..) - we can say that anything that we can reasonably describe (pick out) as a distinct "process", changes the configuration of the system in a discernible way, the heat/energy throughput is a valid description of the system over time - there is also an information-theoretic description of the system. When the global entropy of a system increases, it means that it requires - overall - more extensive information to describe than a sub-region of that system where energy/heat decreases locally, where there is order, information, structure... and my thesis is that spatiotemporal structure is the central defining aspect of systems - this unites the thermodynamic, complexity-theory, information-theoretic and model-theoretic views of systems.

"...so I really find it bemusing when religious fundamentalists attempt to lecture me on the subject."

There you go...you snobby know-it-all sciency types thinking you can explain everything! Have you ever given birth to a baby?! Do you know where we go when we die?! Do you know how the Universe was created?! Do you?! Do YOU!!?

Symmetry-breaking? I've had a thought that what distinguishes non-equilibrium systems is the asymmetry that would shift entropy measurements to counting pathways rather than just component distribution -- the minimal case being where all pathways are possible, ie, equilibrium conditions with low asymmetry in all dimensions.

I sure wish someone would figure this out so I would stop wasting my spare capacity --- this problem keeps on sneaking into the back of my head. I guess it's the only real problem. How to count, that is.

I didn't see this mentioned, but the major flaw in the reasoning is that it is assumed that the second "law" must be upheld. Science is all about observation, so *if* (big if) the argument that evolution goes against the second law, then - since evolution has actually been observed to happen - all that properly follows is that the second law is wrong and must be modified. Observation overrules calculation any day

Now, I'm not saying that the second law is wrong, or that evolution implies that it is, I'm just pointing out a flaw in the reasoning.

Symmetry-braking? Well, quite - bifurcaton of complex systems. In bifurcated complex systems, information is present as distributed, meaningfully-discernible structure. Lookning at life on earth as a whole, and human knowledge and technology (including language and media) specifically, we find that information is also "mirrored", transduced and processed in specific ways - through similarity relations. Like between a printed picture of the horsehead-nebula, our mental representation of the printed picture of the horsehead-nebula, the data stored in my PC's harddrive of the picture of the horsehead nebula and the nebula itself. Now, the system composed of all these things - the printout, my brain, the hard-disk shows - as a whole, a complex form of self-similarity, namely that specific parts of it are similar to other parts of it, - the spatiotemporal, and thus also informational structure of these subsystems are affine translations/transformations of each other.

In physical reality, we have to assume there is some lowest level, some fundamental constituent (strings, particles, local excitations of fields, whatever) - in contrast to the hypothetical infinite divisibility in abstract mathematical representations and quantifications. As such, there will be a lowest level. But otherwise, a good analogy (if not taken too literally) would be a fractal... as we zoom in, we find certain parts similar both to other parts at the same level of "zoom" and similar to structures at other levels. In such immensely complex systems as life on earth, perhaps even life on earth plus the things external to earth of which we humans have created informational representations... there is perhaps little similiarity between different levels of "zoom"... but there are certainly still many similarity-relations between sub-systems. This again brings us back to Complexity of description - algorithmic/kolmogorov-complexity.

Well, there is something to be said for this. But it's also a bit naive - all observation is theory-laden. Observation is more than mere perception. In observing (not merely perceiving) something, we conceptualize it in a certain way that takes certain things for granted. For example, when we data we got from an experiment (observation), we take a lot for granted when we draw conclusions from that - namely everything that is presupposed by all of science, plus everything that is presupposed by the specific methods we employ.

Thus, all observation is "tainted" by theoretical presuppositions (the scientific instruments of measurement of physicists for example are constructed and interpreted according to a specific theoretical understanding of that which is studied and observed, - which has to be true if the readings of these instruments are to be meaningful).

So, there is no strictly clear line of demarcation between "observation" and "theory".

I like to keep it down to counting. What do we have to count? That's a tricky problem - as K complexity shows, since you can't count K, just give it an upper bound.

I hate putting it into words --- the problems are always due to words. If you can reduce all you're saying down to counting --- I'd find it a bit more digestible. All that nastiness of scales and self-similarity just make it harder to figure out what we're supposed to be counting.

I'm not sure what's so naive about the notion of falsifiability. It is the core of the scientific method. If something is predicted by a theory, but it is observed not to be the case (repeatably), then the theory must be modified.

In this case, if (font size 300 IF) the second law of thermodynamics did indeed predict that evolution could not happen, then - since we have observed it happening - we would have to modify the second law to take into account the new findings.

Of course, I don't think the creationists are really gunning for the second law, they hope their argument will be solely against evolution

And as many other posters have pointed out, the second law predicts no such thing, so it's bunk to begin with, but IF it did, the thing modified would have to be the second law, not evolution

Anders: Science is all about observation, so *if* (big if) the argument that evolution goes against the second law, then - since evolution has actually been observed to happen - all that properly follows is that the second law is wrong and must be modified. Observation overrules calculation any day

Mmmm. I'd have to suggest that we put the benefit of the doubt towards physics.

First, evolution is not primarily observations --- but it's the body of theory that makes those observations make sense.

Second, the general rule is we believe the physicists first, and then the biologists. Simpler systems and more rigorous theories. The thermodynamic observations can be much more rigorously controlled than evolutionary observations, and thermodynamic theory can be worked from first principles in a way that evolutionary theory has not been.

So, if evolutionary theory actually contradicted physical theory --- then we'd be better off betting that biologists had been misinterpreting their observations than that physicists had. The latter is always possible -- but I wouldn't bet my mortgage payments on it.

Science isn't just about observations -- it's about a system of interpreted observations that are consistent. Usually, when your observations don't match the well-tested calculations, it's your observations that are wrong. But it is much more interesting when you find that the calculations are actually wrong.

correct, but these fruitbats are all about denying that Evolution is actually observed.
You know, they'll pull the old canard that only micro-evolution is observed, and then they'll use their mistaken interpretation of the second law to confirm their affirmation that macro-evolution has never been observed, as it is physically impossible that it occurs.

I think we have to distance ourselves from the focus on "counting". Some aspects can be formally described, not by literally counting - ie by a one-dimensional metric, but only by more complex formal, perhaps (but not necessarily) quantitative representations. Applying mathematics in theories in empirical science is all about relations - not merely between numbers on a one-dimensional metric (of the real-numbers for example)... but potentially about describing formally more complex relations - consider the properties of the Lorentz-attractor as a representation of the development of a chaotic system. The discernible structure is not expressible in a one-dimensional metric (ie "counting"). Or consider spacetime topology inside a system over time. We can formally describe a system over time as the configuration between its fundamental elements over time - and we can represent each intrinsic property of an element as a vector or a value of a dimension - and the topological relation between the elements, the dynamic behaviour of the system (including shifting electromagnetic fields etc) will be describable so that we can formally, strictly constitute homeomorphisms or topological isomorphisms in abstract vector-spaces.

These kinds of mathematics can be used in game-theory and decision-theory, as well as automata-theory and neural network theory. All completely scientific. But sometimes we need more complex and abstract methods of description than mere counting - constituting topological/structural and/or informational homeomorphisms in systems is one such instance.

I was not criticizing falsification - absolutely not. I was making the independent point that observation is always theory laden - and that consequently, when a prediction turns out not to be observed, we cannot say with certainty where the error was specifically in the specific theory that made the prediction. And the theory as well as our means of testing it (interpreting our raw-data - our observations) take certain things for granted - and the error, the reason why the prediction doesn't match the observation can lie anywhere within the entire complex of assumptions of the theory and its presuppositions - as well as the pre-suppositions of the method we chose to test the theory.

Popper had it right that falsification is our primary method. But such people like Imre Lakatos, W. Quine, and P. Dunhem, Sneed and Suppes have shown that science has other aspects as well - for example the under-determination of theories by empirical data (a specific set of empirical data is never only compatible with one single theory-network) and theory-ladenness of observation (as the saying goes "the sciences face trial as a whole").

If this interests you, I'd recommend looking up the "Duhem-Quine thesis" (Wikipedia-Article

OK, but what justifies the 0.001 reduction in microstates each generation? Why not 0.1, or 0.000001? Instead of Styers' approach, my problem with the creationist's argument is that they never talk in terms of microstates, which is the only way to deal with entropy. Creationists equate "humans" with "order" (i.e. few microstates), and "human ancestors" with "disorder" (i.e. many microstates). Where in the world does this argument come from? In fact, who's to say that evolution leads to fewer microstates... maybe if we do the astronomically difficult calculation of determining the microstates of a human vs. a dinosaur, there would be *more* microstates in the human?! i.e. we could have Sf > Si, rather than Sf < Si.

True, they never stick to one argument. When it's shown to fail, they move immediately on to the next, until they run out of arguments, at which time they start over again. If that energy could be harnessed, we would be well on the way to energy independence :)

But I still enjoy pointing out to them that their arguments, even if you accept all their invalid premises, still don't lead to the conclusion they hope

Isn't topology just another way of counting as well? One hole, two holes, knot hole, ripped hole?

I don't think we're capable of any kind of "mathematics" that doesn't ultimately reduce to counting -- in some dimensionality (i.e., we can count more than one box at a time). The proliferation of words may be perfectly methodological --- but it's also dangerous, if it leads us to think that we're doing anything other than counting.

That's why entropy is so satisfying -- it brings back all the nastiness back to how many pigs we can fit in the pen, and how to find the fattest one.

Sure, we are all making assumptions all the time, to make life easier (and more full of jesus images in toast).

But it is still the fact, that if you make a direct observation that turn out to be contrary to the predictions of a theory, something has to be changed. Assuming the test setup is correct, within the framework of accepted scientific theory, some part of some theory has to go. You don't change the observation. It may be some theory involved in creating the testing equipment, or it may be the theory that made the contradicted prediction.

But you don't just throw out the observation, and that is what the argument sounded like to me (evolution can't be right, no matter how often it is observed, since it violates the second law of thermodynamics!)

Second, the general rule is we believe the physicists first, and then the biologists. Simpler systems and more rigorous theories. The thermodynamic observations can be much more rigorously controlled than evolutionary observations, and thermodynamic theory can be worked from first principles in a way that evolutionary theory has not been.

Depends on the nature and quality of the observations. Biology and geology trumped physics in the debate over the age of the solar system, because the sun is not a sufficiently simple system, and it involves energy-production mechanisms that contemporary physicists had not yet taken into account.

I think Raven's argument at #10 is fairly representative and well said. But is there anyone here who can put their critical thinking cap on and explain what is wrong with his argument or all you all just a bunch of ditto-heads?

I think Raven's argument at #10 is fairly representative and well said. But is there anyone here who can put their critical thinking cap on and explain what is wrong with his argument or all you all just a bunch of ditto-heads?

Well, yes, of course -- it's not about institutional priority, but scientific principle. So your solar age counter-example is good, but off-point. No one tried to use the incorrect physical datings of the solar system to, say, disprove thermodynamics (which was one of the sources of the calculations).

The bets were "unknown energy source", not accounted for, which turned out to be nuclear physics. The equivalent here is that we're calculating the entropy of the system incorrectly; just as in the solar case we calculated the rate of burn and output incorrectly.

But if we can every eliminate that, I'd bet against biology. Just as if we could have actually eliminated all "unknown energy source" from the solar case, I would have bet against geology!

Fortunately, we still have a long way to work on entropy -- and we found the "unknown energy source" -- so I don't have to bet against either physics or biology.

Assuming the test setup is correct, within the framework of accepted scientific theory, some part of some theory has to go. You don't change the observation. It may be some theory involved in creating the testing equipment, or it may be the theory that made the contradicted prediction.

But you don't just throw out the observation, and that is what the argument sounded like to me

Indeed. That's the way it is. But it's also a fact that we cannot know where the problem lies - we don't throw away the observation - but we must also question the assumptions underlying our interpretation of the raw data (and observation is always an interpretation of perception). For example - we have reason to take it as given that a certain instrument of measurement shows a certain value (for example that a digital thermometer shows +290.3 degrees Kelvin), but if we predict something about a system and measure it with highly complex instruments, and the prediction doesn't match the observation - the error may also lie in the assumptions underlying our belief that the output of the instrument tells us something about a real property of a system... ie the theory that underlies the functioning of the instrument.

No, we don't throw away the observation - but we must be aware that we can never give a definitive answer to the question "where exactly the error lay" when a prediction doesn't match the theory. We may be fundamentally in error in our scientific interpretation of the world - that's the skeptic challenge. The construct of all the accepted scientific theories (accepted as "working-hypotheses") cannot prove its own truth - that's why there is no final verification of theories in science, as we all know. But we have task-independent measurements of the quality of an explanatory approach: Parsimony, broadness of explanation, Corroboration, increase of logical and structural coherence when introduced into a framework of background-assumptions, and being (part of) a progressive (not stagnant or regressive) research-program.

Then we have some reasonable pragmatic rules of scientific methodology - for example methodological naturalism, which says in essence nothing more than "'Magic' is just not an explanation". This leads us not only to all our scientific insights, but also to the conclusion that we have no reason to accept the hypothesis that any sort of deity exists. We cannot prove that we are right - but this way, we can show that such a rationalist worldview as we hold is the best we can do, and that creationist nonsense is entirely inadequate. It's not coherent, not parsimonious, wildly arbitrary and has no explanatory value whatsoever, because it postulates "magic" as an explanation.

MPhil: No, we don't throw away the observation - but we must be aware that we can never give a definitive answer to the question "where exactly the error lay" when a prediction doesn't match the theory.

Actually, in practice we do -- all the time. It's only when you get 10, 100, a 1000 "wrong" observations (depending on field) that we start to suspect that the theory's got a hole in it, instead of throwing away the data.

Just imagine a graduate student goes to their boss and says, "See this little stem cell dish? Well, a little George Bush formed in it!" What's the boss say --- "That's just fungus. Go repeat your experiment". Next day "I've got Palin in a dish!" -- "Go repeat it. That's just fungus". Next day "I've got Jeb in a dish!" -- "Okay, wash out the entire apparatus and start from scratch".

Repeat for 5 years. If you still have incompetent little stooges growing in your dish, your boss (and committee) may consider letting you publish on this.

But if we can every eliminate that, I'd bet against biology. Just as if we could have actually eliminated all "unknown energy source" from the solar case, I would have bet against geology!

But the issue here was that a physical theory made a prediction about something in biology. Are you suggesting that if that prediction turns out to be wrong, it is still right, simply because it is physics?

You also said

and thermodynamic theory can be worked from first principles in a way that evolutionary theory has not been.

I'd like to see you try to deduce from first principles that no energy is ever created or destroyed. I also can't quite picture what a proof from first principles of entropy would look like.

I'm just saying that this, what we're doing all the time - namely deciding upon a specific evaluation of our observations and their relations to our theories... is not something where we can 100% certain. We're just going with what works best - but we have no 100% guarantee that we're right - the skeptical challange: we cannot even prove logically (ie with mathematical certainty) that anything outside our own minds exists... so how could we be 100% certain that any conclusion, any scientific judgement we arrive will be true? We cannot - not even about where the error lay. We can make educated guesses, but we cannot exclude the logical (we deem it remote) possibility that some underlying assumptions in the general framework for our interpretation of our perceptions are wrong.

That's why we have relative measures of explanatory adequacy of theories that do not necessitate knowing with absolute certainty that the theory is true or false... namely parsimony, explanatory broadness, corroboration and elimination of anomalies between underlying background-assumptions.

Our best current scientific theories are always the best bet because they are the most methodological and thus reliable informant for our view of the world. We cannot prove anything of it is true - (we can only prove tautologies), but we can show that science is the best we have - and that it simply works! It works wonderfully, in fact.

But my original point here was just that the creationist argument "if the theory says it's wrong, then it's wrong, even if it's observed" is clearly bunk.

Absolutely! I was just remarking that even with all the effort we can put into questioning where the error lay, why there is a mismatch between observation and theory, there is a specific fundamental uncertainty which we cannot eliminate - namely that all observations have underlying assumptions and all ways to find out where the error lies work on the basis of certain assumptions as well... scientific thinking cannot prove that scientific thinking is anywhere absolutely true. But, as I said - we can show that compared to myths, pseudo-science, post-modernist ideology and or wishful-thinking, science and methodological rationality as exemplified in empirical sciences, structural and informational sciences, analytical philosophy etc does far better and is for all intents and purposes preferable.

This is also something the creationists and religious don't seem to understand.

AM: But the issue here was that a physical theory made a prediction about something in biology. Are you suggesting that if that prediction turns out to be wrong, it is still right, simply because it is physics?

Nope --- I'm just saying which way I'd bet until it was absolutely, iron-clad conclusive. Iff physics made a prediction that contradicticted a biological observation, I would bet that something was incorrectly interpreted in the biological observation. Just as the fools who say that the "observed" increase in biological order entails a a decrease in entropy --- and we can see that it's a misinterpretation of the biology and the physics.

I'd like to see you try to deduce from first principles that no energy is ever created or destroyed. I also can't quite picture what a proof from first principles of entropy would look like.
These things are all derived from observation.

Bzzzz --- wrong!

Which observations show you that no energy is created or destroyed? "All" observations? Which experiment could falsify conservation of energy, in practice? No conservation of energy implies no conservation of momentum, it means a completely different understanding of force -- it wrecks everything about physics. Without conservation of mass-energy, you can't interpret your experiments in the first place --- it would be a reboot in physics.

It would take a hell of a lot more than a few observations to do that!

It just ain't that simple -- it's not a unidirectional flow from observation to theory. We're more than willing to eliminate marginal observation that messes up a really satisfying and powerful theory. It's a balancing act between observation and theory, in practice.

In particular, entropy is easily derived from counting the ways you can arrange things, defining your set of equivalent arrangements and then figuring out what the probability of the different sets of arrangements are. Iff the world is the kind of place that is consistent, energy meaningful, and counting appropriate, the increase in entropy is necessary.

Pick up Feynmann's book on statistical mechanics. He does not start with experimental results -- he starts with a first principles derivation of entropy. Of course, observations led us to derive entropy --- but the experimental results are not sufficiently constraining to define entropy --- the logical mapping from randomly moving particles to homogeneous bulks was just (if not more) important, which we then went forward with to explain and find further experiments.

No one tried to use the incorrect physical datings of the solar system to, say, disprove thermodynamics (which was one of the sources of the calculations).

No, but they were used to disprove what I would say was an equally fundamental component of physics at the time--the constancy of the elements. (Rutherford actually spun the discovery of radioactivity to Kelvin that way--he credited Kelvin's calculation for proving, through its absurdity, that there must be an unknown source of energy in nature!)

The bets were "unknown energy source", not accounted for, which turned out to be nuclear physics. The equivalent here is that we're calculating the entropy of the system incorrectly; just as in the solar case we calculated the rate of burn and output incorrectly.

True, but there's a difference between performing the steps of the calculation incorrectly, and basing the calculation off incorrect theoretical assumptions. Kelvin's math was right--his theory was wrong, in a big way.

If it turned out that animals were actually dumping entropy into another dimension or something, I think that would count as more than just a calculational error; it would signal a fundamental change in our understanding of thermodynamics.

But if we can every eliminate that, I'd bet against biology. Just as if we could have actually eliminated all "unknown energy source" from the solar case, I would have bet against geology!

Thing is, that's exactly what Kelvin thought he did. He observed that the sun's heat must be gravitational in origin because "no other natural explanation, except by chemical action, can be conceived."

He was wrong, of course, but that's because you can't actually eliminate unknown energy sources--or unknown entropy sinks, for that matter. That follows from their being unknown! All you can do is eliminate the known ones that are implied by your current understanding of physics.

But, as you say, our current theories of physics are entirely consistent with our current theories of biology. Except for bumblebee flight, which is clearly a matter of divine fiat.

I think Raven's argument at #10 is fairly representative and well said. But is there anyone here who can put their critical thinking cap on and explain what is wrong with his argument or all you all just a bunch of ditto-heads?

Isolated system, Randy. A system where neither matter nor energy can enter or leave. Living beings are not isolated systems. That's why growth is possible, why life (DNA repair and stuff) is at all possible, and why evolution is possible.

MPhil: we can show that science is the best we have - and that it simply works! It works wonderfully, in fact.

Agreed. The keyword is show. At some point the whole thing just holds together --- and you just point at the multicolored jacket. We have TV's, nuclear power, cars, computers, extra-solar satellites --- either accept science or go live in a cave: no other alternative is acceptable.

I'm aiming at the folks who claim an elementary school type of science where you hypothesize, experiment, then repeat! That's not science -- that's a science project!

I once heard an estimate that the average human being has 4 or 5 mutations that their parents don't. Assuming these are SNPs and are randomly distributed over about 3 billion base pairs, we get that the number of possible mutation-sets is around 9 billion to the 4th or 5th power, or roughly 10 to the 40th or 50th. Let's assume 1045. Since 103 is roughly 210, that's 2150, so mutation is generating about 150 bits of uncertainty (informational entropy) in the gene pool for each person born.

Natural selection reduces this uncertainty by eliminating individuals and genes (mutations) from the population. In a species with stable population and stable genome size, these two tendencies cancel each other on average. The total information content of the species gene pool stays about the same over time, though the specific information will change.

It can go up if the genome gets bigger (gene duplication, chromosome duplication, full-genome duplication, or lateral gene transfer from another species), if the population gets bigger, or (a little) if the environment temporarily favors more diversity.

This is probably one reason why full-genome duplication has been so widespread (the vertebrate line has gone through at least 2 rounds of FGD and has a quadrupled genome; some fishes at least 3 and octupled). It's the easiest way to get a lot of "blank paper".

AM: If it turned out that animals were actually dumping entropy into another dimension or something, I think that would count as more than just a calculational error; it would signal a fundamental change in our understanding of thermodynamics.

I think we're agreed. It would require a fundamental change in our understanding of thermodynamics -- which is exactly why it's the last possible choice we'll make, after we've exhausted ever other possible mistake we could be making.

Like writing code -- first, you assume a local bug. Then a global bug. Then, that you need more sleep. Next, a library bug. Then finally, an operating system bug. At which point you give up, get drunk and come back again.

Which experiment could falsify conservation of energy, in practice? No conservation of energy implies no conservation of momentum, it means a completely different understanding of force -- it wrecks everything about physics. Without conservation of mass-energy, you can't interpret your experiments in the first place --- it would be a reboot in physics.

Not entirely. The uncertainty principles do falsify classical conservation of energy and momentum, and it's still up in the air (as I understand it) whether these quantities are conserved on a universal scale. But none of these exceptions are sufficiently in-your-face to make the classical conservation laws unusable for most experiments and situations we encounter.

Likewise, if the 2nd law were found not to hold in the case of evolution, the violation would necessarily be extremely subtle--we already know the 2nd law works just fine for predicting all sorts of behavior in all sorts of systems. So I don't think you can conclude that "either the 2nd law is correct, or physics breaks."

We're more than willing to eliminate marginal observation that messes up a really satisfying and powerful theory.

You're an engineer, aren't you.

When I talk about "an observation" now, I obviously don't mean just one single instance. I did say "repeatable". I also assume that it has already gone through the usual stages of peer review and reproduction by independent parties.

If at that stage, theory conflicts with observation, then the theory must be modified. There is no other option, if you want to continue calling yourself scientific.

The size of the error in the theory isn't really relevant. Even a small error, if it can be shown to not be due to methodological problems, must be taken into account when designing a theory.

And no, discovering that energy could be destroyed would not require a reboot of physics, because all previously made observations would still be true. All that would happen is that a new theory is built up, which incorporates the newly discovered phenomenon, along with everything else previously discovered - just as Relativity reduces to Newtonian mechanics on scales where the relativistic error is small enough.

If there couldn't be local decreases in entropy, then how could we ever build a bridge, skyscraper, type a letter, or do anything for that matter? Physics would be violated any time us humans tried to create complexity in this world, and surely the godbots don't think this is happening, right?

DaveScot over at UhDuh, for one, says right out that he violates 2LoT every time he sits down to type at his keyboard. At first blush you might think that, if we can violate 2LoT any time we wish, that must mean it's no big deal if evolution does too -- but no. Apparently it's his spiritual component that does the violating; his physical body couldn't do this by itself. Thus the only way for the development of life through violation of 2LoT can occur is if it's similarly driven by a spiritual force.

Does acceptance of the scientific validity of evolutionary theory necessitate denying that a God might exist?

No, it's not a necessity at all. Otherwise most scientists would be in trouble there.

Just to be clear, about 40% of U.S. scientists believe in a personal God, and the rest express "doubt or disbelief", according to 1996 survey. I haven't found the breakdown, but one might suspect that the doubters outnumber the outright disbelievers, as they do in the society at large, in which case it's true that the majority don't find that denial is necessary. On the other hand, if you focus in on the subset of scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences (whom the survey team calls "'greater' scientists"), things change quite a bit. Nearly 3/4 of them express personal disbelief and only 20% are agnostic - leaving only 7% believers.

Since it bears repeating: see "Natural selection for least action", by Ville R. I. Kaila and Arto Annila (Proceedings of the Royal Society A, doi:10.1098/rspa.2008.0178). To boil that down: when the second law of thermodynamics expressed for connected subsystems with mass-energy flow between, natural selection is a mathematical consequence.

The Steyer paper is doi:10.1119/1.2973046 if any one cares (or for that matter, even if they don't).

Vincent: it's more effective to be able to note that not only does their "entropy increases" Second Law require closed systems, but to be able to note that for open systems connected by mass-energy flows, evolution is a direct result of that Second Law.

I thought that a singularity was the highest form of order, and that increasing complexity was therefore an increase in disorder, no matter how well it appeared organized? Is this totally wrong, or as a scientific moron, am I just simplifying things to the point of unhelpful?

You're trying to reason with some frightfully ill-defined terms, which is rather a recipe for trouble! "Singularity", for example, is meaningless in this context. It is true that, generally speaking, making a system more "complex" means that more information is necessary to describe it. This is the sense that the string of characters "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" is simpler than, say, "QOP4E3YP8709UPWYTENVAPIWYT5OH". For a string of the former type, all you have to say is, "Type so-and-so many As in a row", while the latter string probably doesn't have a description much shorter than itself.

"Entropy" has a precise, technical meaning, and scientists have technical definitions for "complexity". It's when you try to map these ideas onto woolly words like "order" and "disorder", which have all sorts of emotional baggage of their own, that difficulties are likely to arise.

Also, is there a reading list knocking around along the lines of science for total beginners who don't want to read books aimed at 5 year olds?

Anything by Larry Gonick, anything by Carl Zimmer. For what you might find to be a useful perspective on entropy and how it relates to "order", try Richard Feynman's The Character of Physical Law. A few parts are out of date, mostly in the last chapter; Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is a good way to start catching up. (The only things I'd add to the latter book are that yes, we did find the top quark, and the work of Ken Wilson and company has somewhat drawn the fangs of the "renormalization" problem.)

Does acceptance of the scientific validity of evolutionary theory necessitate denying that a God might exist?

Well that depends on which god you happen to consider the 'real' god. In the case of the creationist's god, who supposedly created humans from whole cloth, sorry, dust, had his creations mess up on him which of course forced him, an omnipotent, omniscient but apparently childishly temperamental superdude, to punish them while kindly including a future out from eternal damnation for some of their descendants, the answer is a resounding yes. Without the salvation that comes from the death of god's alter ego and sacrificial lamb* Jesus, modern Christians have no link to god, so evolution, which shows Adam and Eve and their subsequent offspring could not have existed, pretty much removes the reason for their faith.

To a Biblical literalist, common descent and an old Earth both mean god didn't do what he said he did.

However if the 'real' god is just your average 'hide in the gaps' kind of guy, evolution really can't even suggest he doesn't exist because even as the gaps become fewer and fewer, eventually he will retreat to an area where evoluton just doesn't apply ... unless you conflate evolution with atheism and atheism with abiogenesis, star evolution and the BB.

Unless we eventually understand everything perfectly there is always a place for a nameless intelligent designer.

How's that for a non-answer?

*If you or I needed to sacrifice ourselves to ...** ourselves... even though we are immortal and not sacrificable, before we could forgive our creations for being naughty children as we knew they would be, we would be quite correctly considered nuts.

BTW, re "modern Christians", that would be those belonging to one of the 39,000 Christian denominations. It can be fun to lurk on Christian boards and watch the venomous internecine feuding between those who profess love and forgiveness.

I always answer the entropy argument by pointing to my house. After all, it started with a disorganized pile of lumber, nails and bricks. Now look at it. It's a filthy, crappy heap worth half what I paid ... Oh, yeah. Maybe they're right.

Well it seems that Randy Stimpson has STILL managed not to show himself and argue for his presumed rightness. I guess he wants to remain delusional. Besdies, The 2nd Law isn't a law of energy so much as statistics. I've read Brian Greene's books The Elegent Universe and Thbe Fabric of Spacetime, and mostly it is just that things are easier to break than unbreak, snd that is the statictical aspect that makes it a law, the part that says it won't suddenly decrease for no reason.

It's not absolutely impossible to create a local decrease in entropy -- it just requires Work to be done.

The fact that an air conditioner works at all, shows that a localised decrease in entropy is possible. The electricity meter counting down faster while the aircon is on, shows that Work is being done while this happens.

Well, as soon as I hear someone calling entropy "disorder" I know the coming argument will be only mildly informative at the very, very best. I never thought that making a usable estimate of the change in entropy caused by evolving life was currently possible, however. This is very cool.

@Loren Petrich (#43): You're overestimating the Bard, I'm afraid. A byte from a file of ASCII text doesn't have 8 bits of entropy; if it did, you wouldn't be able to compress text, when in fact it compresses very well. The actual entropy is about 1 bit per character (Shannon estimated it as between 0.6 and 1.3), so you're probably out by a factor of 8.

Re the Three Snarks of Thermodynamics: The usual followup is to note that all the major belief systems of the world are based on denying one of the laws. Capitalism is the belief that you can win; communism is the belief that you can break even; religion is the belief that you can quit the game.

Hey guys.I have a creationist friend who says the argument goes like this.Thermodynamics doesn't stop order.It stops complex biological systems from forming.Prigogine showed that simple things like crystals can form,but creationists know that energy is not enough to violate thermodynamics.It requires a machine that can do work.That machine must already be complex or already contain the information for complex machinery.Since something like an embryo or seed already contains the information and complexity to do work,it is able to evercome the second law."biological machines" are not simply in order, rather they are complex. One cannot separate one part from other otherwise there would be no function. Crystallization of ice is much different from complexity of a cell.

creationists know that energy is not enough to violate thermodynamics.

Meaningless.

It requires a machine that can do work.

What does "it" refer to ?

Since something like an embryo or seed already contains the information and complexity to do work,it is able to evercome the second law."biological machines" are not simply in order, rather they are complex.

No, it doesn't have to overcome the 2nd law, as it simply doesn't apply to an obviously open thermodynamic system such as an embryo or a seed.

Tell your creationist friend that ridiculous mumbo-jumbo is not considered a valid scientific argument.

In 1984 I attended a lecture given by Prigogine called "the meaning of the second law" which was given at the ETH, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, the school Einstein went to. I doubt that the creationists even understand, in any real sense, exactly what the second law means.

A number of things come together here to make it more than likely that life could arise and evolve. Prigogine's demonstration of order arising out of chaos, the notion that a flux of matter and energy are readily available in the biosphere and that there is no violation of the second law in this system, and the ideas that have arisen from Wolfram's research on the game of life - that a tiny number of very simple rules of behaviour, applied repetitively, iteratively, can produce structures of astonishing complexity.

I don't think these guys have a clue about the case FOR evolution. They have a predetermined pitch they want to make, and they say any stupid shit to support it.

As a biological anthropologist, I'm interested in explaining why creationists exist, and why they appear to be growing in activity, if not in numbers. Creationism is but one symptom of religious revitalisation movements in many of the world's religions- not just the biblical big three: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

I truthfully don't think you people (evolutionists) are thinking logically here at all.

For one thing, what happens to a pen when you throw it up into the air? Yes it has all this great trusted energy as its going up, but than it eventually comes crashing down.

The calculations for disorder done in the opening paragraphs of this forum suggest that the sun allows for more order. However I think that this is just an temporary illusion. In the long run (just like the pen) things become completely disordered and do not have any more energy to appear ordered. Such as water running upstream, or ice melting and crystallizing, metabolism, digestion, condensation, or a seed and an embryo.

These things are just temporary illusions. Thus in the overall scheme of things, they are becoming disorder.

Life (such as a seed or embryo) has only the exact amount of thrusting energy it needs to allow it to grow and serve its purpose. This "information" was ALREADY previously assigned to it in the blueprint of its DNA (assigned by the creator). There is no mechanism that shows us that DNA can evolve... meaning it has no available assigned energy left other than to procreate and pass on its genetic material. A living thing only has enough time and energy to be born, live and die.

Conclusion... Entropy is eventually closing in on all of us. The Universe tells us this! It is steadily loosing gas. This means less stars are being born and eventually the lights will all go out.

Additionally, the Human geno can only replicate offspring so many times before things go haywire. That is why we should not have kids with our brothers or sisters.

All these little technicalities concerning entropy or the labeled 2nd law of thermodynamics are just inconsistencies that serve for nothing. It serves no purpose in arguing about these technicalities especially when one opens their eyes and truly LOOKS - our resources are diminishing.

I wonder about creobots. They claim that the second law doesn't seem to apply to evolution, but where do they present their information? Why do they post it here, instead of writing up a nice paper following the rules of science and submitting it to an appropriate peer reviewed journal for publication? Maybe because they know their arguments are just sophistry, not scientific, and will not pass peer review. Very telling about the strength of their arguments at the end of the day.

In the long run (just like the pen) things become completely disordered and do not have any more energy to appear ordered.

Well that is true. No one is saying otherwise. Any decrease in entropy will be local both in space and time. As Keynes had it in the long run we are all dead. And in long run all or societies will collapse and any thought we had including any concept of a god will be forgotten. All species, including our own, will one day be extinct. Each planet that has supported life will eventually stop doing so. At some point the universe will be too disordered to support anything as complicated as life.

We aren't IN the long term. Not by physics' standards. all of life on Earth is the short term. We are simply a somewhat interesting temporary blip in a vast universe. Learn to love the impermanence.

I have a creationist friend who says ... that machine must already be complex or already contain the information for complex machinery.

No, this isn't required. The apparent problem of information increase from one generation to the next in general constructive automata (self-replicating machines) was a conundrum until the 1949, when it was resolved by John von Neumann. IIRC, the parent machine passing along a complete blueprint of itself (which, of course, all living things do via DNA inter alia), only places a lower bound on the information in the child machine. McMullin gives a pretty good historical summary of work on variations of this problem. Of course, it is also empirically observed in biology, so this creationist canard holds no water whatsoever.

First, with the help of the random generator, start by assigning the definitions to the terms and repeat until you have a sufficient quantity of freshly processed terms.
It is important in this process that you make absolutely sure that you, nor anybody, understands what these terms could possibly mean.

Sprinkle the freshly processed terms in the available text.

There you have it, a wonderful anitalicious post, ready to provide endless wonder and bemusement for all.

What I don't get about the SLoT creationists is how they think babies are made. We see descent with modification every time there is a birth. Why does that not violate the 2nd law of Thermodynamics yet the same process over a long period does?

What I don't get about the SLoT creationists is how they think babies are made. We see descent with modification every time there is a birth. Why does that not violate the 2nd law of Thermodynamics yet the same process over a long period does?

Hey kel.The response i got was that living things already contain the information to do all of those things.(of course implying here that a god created and programmed this to happen)And of course that followed by the old most mutations are bad argument.

i always thought there was a sort of caveat for the second law, and that was that overall, "disorder" would have to increase slower the futher in time we were to go from a specific event, due to the fact that disorder of a pile of papers on a desk isn't going to be altered if this stack were to topple over and spread out. it is simplistic, but the idea is that entropy makes big differences the futher back in time we go (which is precisely how the 'arrow of time' came to be defined). I am only making a guess as to this property, but i have been compelled by it nonetheless.

A separate issue, how is talkorigins.org NOT credible? i ran into someone else on another blog who thinks this and i am at a loss as to why that would be the case.any help guys, i would appreciate it.

Hey kel.The response i got was that living things already contain the information to do all of those things.(of course implying here that a god created and programmed this to happen)And of course that followed by the old most mutations are bad argument.

Yeah, that's pretty much been my experience too. I've even tried explaining it in very simple terms (I started with "when mummy and daddy love each other") and got ignored for being condescending. Which is fair enough, for someone who kept saying evolution couldn't happen because of thermodynamics they demonstrated the intellect of a 5 year old.

And that's one thing that really grinds my gears. It seems all creationists love to use the phrase "I'm a fan of science", and make it out like they aren't being hostile to science - yet they are just ignoring it. It's just the same as the "I'm not a racist, but" comment where people are admonishing their own guilt by trying to make it seem like they are onside. Nothing but mental manipulation, it might work on others but it won't work on anyone who actually knows anything about science.

Bombay, there is overwhelming evidence showing that evolution has occurred. There is no evidence to support creationism. So we are right, they are wrong. When the creationists finally admit they are wrong, we will get along.

EW> Organisation you say? So, the overall decrease in the complexity of matter over time as a result of the expansion of the universe, supernovae, etc isn't a decrease in organisation? The concept of heat death seems to me to be a massive increase in entropy, local increases aside.
Logical entropy? or local, did you mean? Increases in LOCAL entropy can be readily observed... Hint: ever heard of a nebula?

what do you mean owlmirror "liberal bias" they would still be scientifically correst right?

EW: ARE you for real?! what the hell is logical entropy? What about snow, you dumbass, it happens all the time; millions of trillions of water molecules organise themselves in very ordered faxhion and guess what? Clouds have no brains!

he won't accept embryo, cus there's DNA in there. Ants also have instict and rudimentary intelligence. Zarquon, what about all the other elements up until iron which are produced in fussion as well? what about the forming of a galactic disk from gravity? what about the structure of the entire universe for christs sake, which was produced by the hyperinflation of spacetime in the early universe (which by the way, dramatically lowered entropy. that's more than one example. you fail

people who say intelligence have one big problem to overcome: we are all entirely composed of unintelligent matter, so what you say is baseless in the first place. The "life from life" argument was refuted the very first time they synthesised urea

EA, if you such a hotshot argument, you should quit bothering us with it, and write it up properly and send it to an appropriate scientific journal. If it disproves evolution, I would recommend Science or Nature to ensure your Nobel prize.

And each of these functions are organized in such a way that they support the other functions and the overall function of the mousetrap, which is to catch mice.

What features of the mousetrap itself tell you that its function is to catch mice, rather than to catch voles, or to catch the fingers of people reaching into dark places, or to be a one-shot percussion instrument?

The important point is that the adaptation of means to ends, the adaptation of structure and process to function requires insight.

If that's the important point, you will no doubt provide evidence that such adaptation requires insight, rather than just asserting that it does over and over again.

A mousetrap is unevolvable without intelligent input, not because you can't take it apart without it losing it's function, it's unevolvable because you can't put it together in the first place using only random, non-directed, accidental occurrences.

Rickroll, when a person is stupid enough to sockpuppet, which is using a second moniker to either create controversy or evade the ban, that is another crime committed, so we can lambaste them. We aren't polite to those who don't obey PZ's rules.

EW/Creationist Troll> I responded to your question reasonably, as did others... care to reply? Or is that beyond you today? Of course, you can simply rehash Behe's refuted arguments again if you prefer...

But he'll be back under another. The guy just can't take a hint, even when that tap on the shoulder is done by a sledgehammer. If he can't learn how evolution works, how's he going to learn his inane ramblings are unwelcome here?

If he can't learn how evolution works, how's he going to learn his inane ramblings are unwelcome here?

And not just evolution. He doesn't want to learn anything about how science in general works, either.

I pointed out that his steady-state universe was contradicted by the big-bang model of the universe, and his "eternal regress of life" was therefore contradicted by basic cosmology and astrophysics. Did he pay attention to this? He did not.

We dont even need to do entropy calculations (which i think were grossly underestimated). Biochemistry gives us the answer. All lifeforms get their complex macromolecules by some set of reactions that increase entropy. We do it largely through the breakdown of glucose into water and carbon dioxide. Not only that, but every step in our metabolic pathways gives an overall increase in entropy!!!!

So evolution has drastically increased entropy, as it has lead to this entropy-increasing metabolism we have.

indeed Ken-bar, protazoans use alot less energy and disperse less of it than say a tree. and the same tree uses monumentally less energy than a shrew, which is an incredibally entropic critter. But i think that intelligence (while itself the faculty of which is very energy intessive- the brain uses some thing like 80% of our energy) actually seeks to lessen the effect of entropy on the world (all of our inventions utilise this property). i think that really, though energy increases, this also allows more flexability with it as well

OK this is a great discussion on a subject I find endlessly fascinating so while we've got you all here:

If seems all agree that living organisms can be seen as a special type of ordered system that can arise from a disordered environment under certain conditions given sufficient energy input. However it seems no one has any idea why this should be (Note I am talking about the origin of life here, I have no problem with evolution by NS). Obviously the religious folks will seize upon this and say Aha! You cant explain it therefore god is the causative agent, however what I'd like to see is someone come up with some scientific principal that will predict how and why this should occur. I think that if the puzzle of the origin of life is framed in this way, we might have some hope of arriving at a satisfying explanation. It appears to me that it may to come down to the complex relationship between information and thermodynamics which my feeble brain has been mulling over for 10 years and, with the kind of brainpower I see here on these subjects I think we have a chance to crack this.
It appears to me that there are two possibilities: there are such principles but we don't yet know what they are (the Laws of infodynamics?) or: we don't need any new laws or principals to explain the origin of life (in which case why has no one come up with a convincing explanation?). I'm inclined to the first but am open to other points of view, any takers? (I know im going to get shredded here, but it'll be worth it).

It's always been obvious that creationist/ID/anti-evolutionists who use the complexity-vs-entropy argument to dismiss evolution (or ANY process) as capable of producing local pockets of complexity within a larger system, have no intention of arguing WITHIN any understanding of the science, but IN SPITE of it: their entire "argument", of course, consists of wanting to sound and look scientific.

They use the word "entropy" or raise the concept of the 2nd law of thermodynamics as a means of striking a blow against evolution (the target idea which they do not resist on any scientific grounds in the first place, but literally "hate" purely on ideological grounds). Their ground of argumentation is must obviously be mired entirely in rhetoric...or "the sell".

Always glad to see ANOTHER nice treatment that puts the nonsense away, but this one better helps to specifically target their claims.

Alas, they won't understand it, but they don't have to in order to sound sufficiently knowledgable to those who listen to them as they pretend to refute it. They KNOW that the folks they're talking to who throw money at them know as little as they do, and will continue to listen attentively. The moolah is a powerful inducement. Cultivating it as a sustainable resource is desirable. The product of the harvest are most desirable. Such are the beneficial fruits of Good Housekeeping Salesmanship.

Sean Carrol #12: you're right. Those aren't strictly the same. (The reduction in the # of microstates with generations isn't strictly the same as the degrees of freedom rearranged). It IS "possible to fix that part up just a bit" - and there are some other things that might stand it to. Cleans it up; "same conclusion, obviously". Looking forward to seeing how you do it.

The mathematics are definitely indispensible, but only to those who can grasp it; yet there are LOTS of ways to demonstrate or express all of this and they don't have to be hidden within a language that's opaque to non-mathematicians. It is not only possible but OKAY to translate the concepts in "plain language" for the consumption of the general public...WITHOUT dumbing it down, PLEASE! That's the most injurious cop-out (or outright incompetence) of institutional "outreach" programs. The VERY WORST of the trend comes about by these institutions salivating over the success of popular modes of stroking the public, as in intensively striving to emulate Hollywood. Every time I see an example of that, I succumb to a twinge of despair.

It's a duty of every scientist to help out in educating a public that is not only uninformed but alarmingly proud of it. It will NOT be accomplished by feeding the public "science bites" with the equivalent of fast food, like all the other junk that is served to them on the chief priority of "the sell". It can only be accomplished with real and sincere communication. That's MUCH harder than pitching a sale, and it will take time. but at least it has the possibility of a positive result.

Otherwise? All we're really doing with this public outreach stuff is EXACTLY the same thing that the creationist/ID/antievolutionists are doing. And we don't realize it EITHER.

i'm sure then than you have looked up the wikipedia article on this very subject then huh? Well Jo3, one of the best examples i got was the thesis of Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglass Hofstadter: any sufficiently powerful system by definition has the inate property of self referance. Meaningless information therefore aquires meaning despite itself.
i think that this is an essential way to frame the problem, even though the book is now rather antiquated. Please do yourself a service and read this escellent book. it may help you out on this.

K. Barr and Rickroll> Obn the Biochemical entropy argument: Does the synthesis of macromolecules, using energy resulting from ATP pathways, actually result in an increase in entropy? I've not bothered calculating (although my students may be doing that as a review today just so I can see the results), but it seems that this wouldn't be the case. Only the final decomposition of organisms would result in an increase in entropy. Again, not a closed system, so it doesn't matter, but I would take issue with that statement until it is demonstrated otherwise. It's also possible I misinterpreted what you meant, and that you were implying that the acquisition of macromolecules or energy from outside sources constitutes an increase in entropy (mirroring the input from the Sun), in which case I have no argument.

The continued use of this by creationists leads me conclude they are:
a) too lazy to read the scientific explanation
or
b) too stupid to understand the explanation
or
c) too dishonest to admit the correctness of the explanation
or
some combination of the above

Anders: And no, discovering that energy could be destroyed would not require a reboot of physics, because all previously made observations would still be true. All that would happen is that a new theory is built up, which incorporates the newly discovered phenomenon, along with everything else previously discovered - just as Relativity reduces to Newtonian mechanics on scales where the relativistic error is small enough.

????

Nope -- not unless it's a really marginal observation. I don't think you really get how observations are made, and how dependent they are on our analytic technique.

The "observations", without a 99.999% (as Anton so kindly points out) matchup, would be as useless as the experimental results of the phlogiston scientists. Observations do not pre-exist theory: the mapping is necessary.

Now, most of the time our theory changes so little in relation to observation that we can adapt previous observation in our new theory --- at the end of the day, relativity is not very different from Newtonian physics. But Copernican astronomy made much of the "observation" -- and not just theory -- of Aristotelian astronomy useless.

We throw out both observation and theory in a dialectic. That dialectic is the key to science and distinguishes science from the purely aesthetic realms of "knowledge" that preceded it.

In the short term -- science looks as you describe it. But in the long-term, it's a dialectic. How much pre-Darwinian "observations" do we actually use in biology? Not much -- they were looking at the wrong things.

I'm not a physical chemist, but with all this talk of entropy, what is being missed is that the free energy (delta G) of the reaction is what drives whether a reaction will go or not. Entropy (delta S) is just one component of the calculation, along with the heat difference (delta H). If the heat given off (or absorbed) is sufficient, the entropy contribution, even if unfavorable, can be overwhelmed. So, if applied to an individual, as long as more heat is being absorbed (sunlight for plants say) or given off (all those that eat plants), the free energy is favorable to run evolution. Entropy is just a red herring.

IST @278: dude, i suck at chemistry, don't ask me. I was merely talking in general terms about metabolism and entropy.
#285: On that not Redhead, this post is officially done with. thanks for killing it Nerd

* the earth is not a closed system; sunlight (with low entropy) shines on it and heat (with higher entropy) radiates off. This flow of energy, and the change in entropy that accompanies it, can and will power local decreases in entropy on earth.
* entropy is not the same as disorder. Sometimes the two correspond, but sometimes order increases as entropy increases. (Aranda-Espinoza et al. 1999; Kestenbaum 1998) Entropy can even be used to produce order, such as in the sorting of molecules by size (Han and Craighead 2000).
* even in a closed system, pockets of lower entropy can form if they are offset by increased entropy elsewhere in the system.

In short, order from disorder happens on earth all the time.

# The only processes necessary for evolution to occur are reproduction, heritable variation, and selection. All of these are seen to happen all the time, so, obviously, no physical laws are preventing them. In fact, connections between evolution and entropy have been studied in depth, and never to the detriment of evolution (Demetrius 2000).

Several scientists have proposed that evolution and the origin of life is driven by entropy (McShea 1998). Some see the information content of organisms subject to diversification according to the second law (Brooks and Wiley 1988), so organisms diversify to fill empty niches much as a gas expands to fill an empty container. Others propose that highly ordered complex systems emerge and evolve to dissipate energy (and increase overall entropy) more efficiently (Schneider and Kay 1994).

Than I'm not clearly understanding something. Please tell me what the whole argument is about?

Evolution is descent with modification.

When a child is born, about half the DNA comes from the father and half from the mother. But there are also some copying errors or random mutations. If these mutations are advantageous they are more likely to be passed on to the next generation that children that don't have them. Over enough time an isolated population has enough mutations that they cannot produce fertile offspring with other populations of the same species. We call that event speciation. Once two populations cannot exchange DNA, they will continue to diverge.

Ok thanks for that #288! (even though your verbiage was still confusing to me).

But now I have other questions? Firstly, the earth can be looked at as both a open system and a closed system. I tend to view it as a closed system (Earth complete with Universe)because when I look at the Universe "at large" everything seems to be corresponding to the influence of something else (a type of equilibrium). This is likened unto our human body and the cells that work within it, (I would consider a human body to be a closed system in which nothing else can come in except for food and nutrients to sustain it). When we boil everything down, it all deduces to atoms which are composed of everything. If I am wrong in this thinking please correct me.

Secondly, I can see that there are many processes where things that are in the process of disorder can become ordered, but I see these things as only temporary things. Just like food and nutrients entering the human body where it is used only to "sustain" it for short periods of time before it needs more.

Thirdly, what I would like to know is if these small increases in entropy can really be seen as "evolution"? Or rather, can this system truly produce enough energy to change all sorts of living species into another?

I am dismal to think it can. This is because I don't think this is the "right type" of increased entropy inside of a closed system that can generate things to change.

You said: When a child is born, about half the DNA comes from the father and half from the mother. But there are also some copying errors or random mutations. If these mutations are advantageous they are more likely to be passed on to the next generation that children that don't have them. Over enough time an isolated population has enough mutations that they cannot produce fertile offspring with other populations of the same species. We call that event speciation. Once two populations cannot exchange DNA, they will continue to diverge.

I comment: But from what I understand about DNA and copying errors, this is not any sort of evolution. From what I am told, a "mutation" is not an added gene of any sort, rather it is a gene that is missing which usually amounts to a defect that is not favorable. I am also told that tandem repeats in genes do not spell mutation either. I was also informed that not one single "added" gene has ever been observed in any living thing. Additionally I was informed that not even with "natural selection" does it change (add or subtract) the genes, however there are many tandem repeats, but a dog still remains to be a dog.

But from what I understand about DNA and copying errors, this is not any sort of evolution. From what I am told, a "mutation" is not an added gene of any sort, rather it is a gene that is missing which usually amounts to a defect that is not favorable.

No, not all mutations are defects. Most mutations are actually neutral, and each one of us has them. It's just that we see the bad mutations in a macroscopic way. Mutation is the mechanism of change, natural selection is the quality control and genetic drift is the mechanism of speciation. (all in the basic sense)http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html

I was also informed that not one single "added" gene has ever been observed in any living thing.

What criteria are you looking for? You can only modify what's there, that's evolution.

Additionally I was informed that not even with "natural selection" does it change (add or subtract) the genes, however there are many tandem repeats, but a dog still remains to be a dog.

And a human is still a human, and a goldfish is still a goldfish. But if breeds of dog are kept apart from long enough and there are enough of the right kinds of mutations then eventually the isolated breeds will no longer be able to reproduce with fertile offspring. That point is called speciation and after you have that, give enough time and you'll have divergence in morphology.

From what I am told, a "mutation" is not an added gene of any sort, rather it is a gene that is missing which usually amounts to a defect that is not favorable. I am also told that tandem repeats in genes do not spell mutation either. I was also informed that not one single "added" gene has ever been observed in any living thing. Additionally I was informed that not even with "natural selection" does it change (add or subtract) the genes, however there are many tandem repeats, but a dog still remains to be a dog.

Then you have been lied to.

Every one of these things you have been told is simply a flat-out LIE.
Mutations include additions, deletions, duplications and rearrangement of genes (among other possibilities I may have left out). The claim that only deletions count is a LIE.
Some mutations are beneficial to the organism, some are harmful, most are actually neutral. The claim that all (or even most) mutations are harmful is a LIE.
All these types of mutations have been observed in real, living creatures, both in the lab and and in the wild. To claim otherwise is a LIE.
Your last sentence is completely incoherent, and to claim it is even intelligible is a LIE.

The bottom line is, creationists are liars. They have to be, because their delusions cannot survive without being propped up by a never-ending supply of lies.

Kel, what I am reading is that several biological properities, like expanding to fill all ecological niches, appear to behave similar to gas laws, where the expansion of a gas into a smaller cylinder is due to entropy effects.

I'm still not convinced it is entropy, even though it has the appearance of entropy. But then, I'm a bit weak in physical chemistry.

i find it impossible to beleieve that "a dog is still a dog" makes sense to you, you can't brred a female chiuaua with a great dane. What you're saying is erroneos from the get-go. Blue eyes, actually, ar a mutation that has spread, and it can be traced back to one man. if that isn't adding infromarion, i don't know what is. adaption to environments is the factor that separates the various populations of a speceies and causes different breeds to engender speciation. In fact, "species" is an incredably variable term, because of the amout of evolution that occurs all the time. this is also stated in Talkorigins.org

Kel, what I am reading is that several biological properities, like expanding to fill all ecological niches, appear to behave similar to gas laws, where the expansion of a gas into a smaller cylinder is due to entropy effects.

Fair enough.

What I don't get though is how to match that to our observations on biology. We can see descent with modification, evolution is simply that process over a longer time scale. If evolution violated entropy, surely we wouldn't be able to have offspring. When we have observed mutation, natural selection, genetic drift and speciation, what else is there that could possibly violate thermodynamics?

what about the mule then huh? that is a special example in and of it's own. as soon as you use the word "artifiscial" you aren't talking about nature. your argument makes no sense. besides, there is this tendancy of "ring species that form around mountain ranges. There is a few entrys in talk origins in the CC index.

You said: Every one of these things you have been told is simply a flat-out LIE. Mutations include additions, deletions, duplications and rearrangement of genes (among other possibilities I may have left out). The claim that only deletions count is a LIE.

I say: Okay, I have double checked with certain sources. I think it is you who is misinformed and uneducated on the subject. Yes, there are as you say deletions, duplications and rearrangements, but there are no "additions". These are just tandem repeats of the same existing information... THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION.

Still nothing new is happening here (evolution wise). The word "mutation" is a scary undefined word.

Okay, I have double checked with certain sources. I think it is you who is misinformed and uneducated on the subject. Yes, there are as you say deletions, duplications and rearrangements, but there are no "additions". These are just tandem repeats of the same existing information... THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION.

How is it not new information? Just how do you think evolution works? It only modifies what's there. Gene duplication and modification can lead to increased information.

I say: Only modifying what's there is called "natural selection". And natural selection is not mutation (and many scientists are careful to claim that it is). Since it uses the same genes. The gene sequence can duplicate itself, but again its still using the same information. A rat is still a rat, it cannot change into a cat.

One of the articles that you supplied said: Rather than get bogged down trying to define what information is, let's just look at a few other discoveries made by biologists in recent years. For instance, it has been shown a simple change in gene activity in sea squirts can turn their one-chambered heart into a working two-chambered one. Surely this counts as increasing information?

I say: I am familiar with this, but what this article fails to tell us is that something like this does not happen naturally in nature (it has never been observed) only in a laboratory.

If you think a rat changing into a cat is evolution, then you really need to go and read up on the basics. Because a rat will never change into a cat. Not in 1 generation, not in 1,000,000 generations. Evolution doesn't work that way, it doesn't work anywhere near that way. A rat and a cat share a common ancestor. Just as a rat and a human share a common ancestor. But under no circumstance will a human give birth to a rat, we simply don't have the genetic code in us to make it so.All we can give birth to is slightly mutated humans and over time given enough isolation and genetic drift, the descendants of mine may not be able to reproduce successful offspring with your descendants. At that point there will be two species of human rather than one, and that means that future mutations will not be shared across species.

Only modifying what's there is called "natural selection".

No, modifying what's there is called mutation. Whether those mutations survive and mix back into the genepool is a combination of natural selection and genetic drift.

I am familiar with this, but what this article fails to tell us is that something like this does not happen naturally in nature (it has never been observed) only in a laboratory.

Nylon-eating bacteria. Mutated and observed in nature. Not that it matters whether it's observed in nature or the lab, just that it's observed. Being in a lab offers several advantages too, we can control the environment far more and that way we can take our variables in order to increase our understanding of the processes at hand.So what does all this have to do with the 2nd law of thermodynamics?

Yes, there are as you say deletions, duplications and rearrangements, but there are no "additions". These are just tandem repeats of the same existing information... THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION.

Sigh.

It is modification of a repeated gene that can give rise to a new gene that does something genuinely different from the original gene it arose from.

A simple example is that we know that the human genes for detecting red and green wavelengths arose as a duplication of a gene for detecting a single wavelength in that frequency range (it's actually more complicated than that, but that's the simple version).

New copy of pigment gene + modifications of original and copy of pigment gene = full color vision (as we understand color, anyway).

It doesn't happen quickly, but the whole point is that it absolutely does happen.

I really don't get the argument from the 2nd law. What does natural selection, mutation and speciation have to do with thermodynamics?

Not much. If you think of entropy only in terms of thermodynamics then there isn't much of a connection. Think instead of how entropy applies to information. If you begin to randomly modify information (such as DNA) you eventually have nonsense. Evolution argues that random modification of information creates more information rather than turning it into nonsense.

If you think of entropy only in terms of thermodynamics then there isn't much of a connection. Think instead of how entropy applies to information. If you begin to randomly modify information (such as DNA) you eventually have nonsense.

No it doesn't, and I'm really surprised that you can think it would. I've asked for clarification several times in the Texas Petition thread about the matter because after pondering the question I couldn't see how you would come to that conclusion.

In nature:
Good mutations = more likely to be passed on.
Neutral mutations = no more or less chance to be passed on.
Negative mutations = less likely to be passed on.
Extremely negative mutations = will never be passed on.

Any vital code that becomes "nonsense" will be eliminated from the genepool and won't get passed on. Any mutation that inhibits the organism will be less successful. Any mutation that aids the organism will be successful. In information theory, you have specified information that can only degrade from perfection. You don't have that in nature, there is no single code for humanity. Now a lot of the code does specified functions, so if any of that code is detrimental then the organism won't survive to passed on. Our code will never descend into nonsense because if any of the vital coding sequences break, the line stops there and others who don't have that coding sequence error keep on.

If you begin to randomly modify information (such as DNA) you eventually have nonsense. Evolution argues that random modification of information creates more information rather than turning it into nonsense.

I thought it was Shannon Theory of Information that said that.

Of course, I doubt that's the kind of information you're talking about: The longer description you need to use to produce the string means it has more information, or something like that.

Of course, the "nonsense" thing is nonsense: DNA isn't a message that gets garbled. It's roughly analogous to building instructions that can be improved by changing them. Unless you're going to argue that DNA started out perfect, or that all changes are detrimental, I don't see much point to your line of argument.

Evolution argues that random modification of information creates more information rather than turning it into nonsense.

Precisely because of selection. Those modifications that lead to "nonsense" (which is to say, an absolutely fatal flaw in development) are not viable. They die. They do not develop; they do not reproduce. They shuffle off the mortal coil; they push up the daisies; they join the genome invisible. They are EX-genes.

Randy, you have said directly to me that Talkorigins isn't credible. You ignored my question on Your post that merely asked "why?" Then come over here to resume this attack on sanity. The genetic degeneration an individual faces has little to do with evolution. Evolution has to do with populations and species, not individuals

If you think of entropy only in terms of thermodynamics then there isn't much of a connection. Think instead of how entropy applies to information. If you begin to randomly modify information (such as DNA) you eventually have nonsense.
No it doesn't, and I'm really surprised that you can think it would. I've asked for clarification several times in the Texas Petition thread about the matter because after pondering the question I couldn't see how you would come to that conclusion.

In nature:
Good mutations = more likely to be passed on.
Neutral mutations = no more or less chance to be passed on.
Negative mutations = less likely to be passed on.
Extremely negative mutations = will never be passed on.

Any vital code that becomes "nonsense" will be eliminated from the genepool and won't get passed on. Any mutation that inhibits the organism will be less successful. Any mutation that aids the organism will be successful. In information theory, you have specified information that can only degrade from perfection. You don't have that in nature, there is no single code for humanity. Now a lot of the code does specified functions, so if any of that code is detrimental then the organism won't survive to passed on. Our code will never descend into nonsense because if any of the vital coding sequences break, the line stops there and others who don't have that coding sequence error keep on.

Let me illustrate how devastating modification is to information. Consider the following sentence.

"Kel is a computer programer."

There are a vast number of single character modifications that could be made to this sentence. I let you do the math to compute the number of modifications possible by changing a single character, adding a single character, or deleting a single character. I think there is only one modification that will improve the information. I misspelled "programmer"; so the information can be improved by inserting an "m" at the right place.

So I think you are fooling yourself when you say that most mutations are neutral.

Randy, don't be foolish. genes are instructions, noy declarative sentances,quit being so dense about it. besides, your definition of imptovement has no beasring on whether or not it is an actual improvement. you are making all sorts of linguistic and grammatical rules to fit that statement in, while a larger amout of changes might result in A. a better sentance (i.e. more complexity and literature value) B. the sentance in a different langueage, or C. something completely different and valid. After all as a writer, people weed out words that they feel to be not descriptive enough, or are misspelled, or add whoole other peices of vocabulary. Restricting your example to a single sentance is completely intellectuall disengenuous, as opposed to the tomes of information stored in DNA

As you pointed out, I ignored natural selection in my last comment. So would you agree that we are arguing about whether or not natural selection is able to overcome entropy?

There's nothing to overcome! That's the problem Randy, DNA is not specified information in the way that information theory dictates. There's no one perfect being that as it gets replicated over and over it slowly degrades like Shannon Entropy does. Indeed, it would be a huge problem for evolution if there was such little genetic variation as there would be from a single source.

Consider the Cheetah, about 10000 years ago the population size dropped to as little as 7. Now every cheetah in the world has so little genetic variation it's like they are all siblings. Skin grafts taken from one can work on cheetahs all around the world. They have the same problems that are associated with inbreeding.

Did you ever watch the NOVA series Evolution? Fascinating show, highly recommended. Anyway in there they had an episode on why sex. Because by using sex we are only passing on 50% of our own DNA. Wouldn't it be better to pass on all our own DNA? Well no. They took two different populations of fish in South America I believe. One reproduced asexually the other had sexual reproduction. What they found was the asexual fish had problems with bacteria that the sexual fish did not. Then came a drought and a small population of the fish were isolated. What they found was because there was so little genetic variation in the sexual fish because of the low population, they were now the ones affected with bacteria. It was like they were inbred! Then they took some other fish from a lower pond and put them into the genepool and the problem went away. What all this means is that genetic change is not only a useful function of evolution, it's a vital function! We need to keep mutating because we are always in an arms race for survival. For us it's the microscopic world. For the Zebra, it's against the cheetah. For the Peacock, it's against the Peahen. We need genetic variation in order to survive, we need mutations because other organisms are mutating too. Why do you think Smallpox ravaged South America but the Conquistadors were unaffected? Because their ancestors had developed a resistance to it and they became carriers for a germ that wiped out an empire. Shannon Entropy doesn't apply to evolution because change is a part of the process. The phrase "Mathematics is the language of science" is specified information that can only come about through intelligence, DNA however is not specified like that.

When you have the code
AUG UCU AAC GGU AAC UAA
How is that any different from
AUG UCG AAU GGG AAU UAA
?

So I think you are fooling yourself when you say that most mutations are neutral.

You have hundreds of mutations in your code from your parents and the overwhelming majority do not affect your survival or reproduction strategies one bit. It's only on the odd occasion do we hear of mutations that manifest on the macroscopic level and most of them are harmful but there are a few that are useful. The harmful ones get destroyed by natural selection while the advantageous ones get passed on.

If it doesn't impede on your ability to have fertile offspring, how is it harmful?

I say: Okay, I have double checked with certain sources. I think it is you who is misinformed and uneducated on the subject. Yes, there are as you say deletions, duplications and rearrangements, but there are no "additions". These are just tandem repeats of the same existing information... THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION.

Once again, your "sources" are lying to you.

One particularly interesting example of a beneficial, additive mutation occurring in a living creature (which your "sources" have told you is impossible) is of bacteria that gained the ability to metabolize nylon, opening up an entirely new food source. This change was the result of a point insertion mutation, the addition of a single base pair. This actually happened, the genes of both the original and mutant strains have been analyzed, it IS an addition. And no matter how many times your "sources" lie about it, it won't change the facts.

Though maybe you should consider why you keep getting such bad information from these "Sources" of yours. Do these "Sources" by any chance include convicted felon Kent Hovind or known piglet rapist Ken Ham? You can't learn anything about evolution from creationists, they're liars, and they go to great lengths to avoid learning anything on the subject, and to misinform at every opportunity.

Currious again, not living up to the name:

The word "mutation" is a scary undefined word.

Only because you don't bother to look up the definition or learn anything. Doesn't sound like the way a "currious" person would act, avoiding new information like the plague. Though an irrational fear of the truth is normal for creationists...

All of this is just crazy! One says one thing and someone says another... do any such scientific test really prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt? Can we really say for sure considering that what we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning? Furthermore, when we discuss such issues as to evolution, entropy, natural selection or mutation. These are all wide-ranging words encompassed by many different POINTS OF VIEW. Just because a well accredited, or notorious scientific person gives his/her heehaw on the matter does not mean it is by any means CORRECT!

Whoever in this forum said it was an ATTACK ON SANITY, was correct!

There are just to many fine lines and inconsistencies, as well as points of view that are building anger, and to which only serve to downplay the creators works.

However, I would suggest that we caution just what "FACTS" we think are so, since if someone can get people to believe something that is not true, and that belief leads to those people taking actions to change the world (in terms of scientific views) in a manner that the claimant wishes, this could be more devastating to an "open" society than a nuclear bomb! Darwinism and evolutionism may be that very theory through which evil strives to take the "morality" away from humankind. For what hope have we left if evolutionary biology is correct. It would only serve to pull all our heavenly desires to a grinding hopeless halt.

Yes, I am a CREATIONIST in the highest degree! All said and done, I will be leaving now.

I was hoping you would notice the difference between my argument and the monkey at the type writer argument. Its not the same.

I've been reading your blog. It looks like we can continue the discussion over there at a slower pace. I've got too much work right now to be responding to everyone else. I'll try to post a comment there today or tomorrow.

Darwinism and evolutionism may be that very theory through which evil strives to take the "morality" away from humankind. For what hope have we left if evolutionary biology is correct. It would only serve to pull all our heavenly desires to a grinding hopeless halt.

*yawn*
Only if all your "heavenly desires" require myths to be "true" and empirical observation to be "wrong."

#342 said: *yawn* Only if all your "heavenly desires" require myths to be "true" and empirical observation to be "wrong."

Well than, you might as well kiss your "life-after-death" goodby. Oh and BTW, what was your point in making "points" in all your posts here, to what means and purpose did they serve if it is all for naught (no life-after-death)?

You might also be alarmed to find out that all of your input here was based on "FAITH" (the substance of things not seen, but believed).

To the degree you can really say for sure that you have a brain inside your skull instead of a piece of cauliflower? Yes... though technically, these are inferences from observed evidence, not themselves observed evidence.

First, Science may contradict Faith, and precludes Belief, but cannot preclude Hope. Second, we may have Hope and even Belief that while we may not exist forever, something very much like us may continue to exist after we are gone... and perhaps, be better than we ourselves are.

Currious: You might also be alarmed to find out that all of your input here was based on "FAITH" (the substance of things not seen, but believed).

That's a sloppy definition of faith. For myself, I reserve the term "Faith" for the primary tenets that must be believed without possibility of proof, as opposed to propositions proven as inferences under some rule (which itself is a proposition). I refer to the latter as "Inference"; "Belief" includes both.

The input here is inference, based on the primary propositions of Faith that Logic (EG: Wolfram's Axiom) is valid for philosophical inference, that jointwise affirmation of the Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms is self-consistent, and that Reality is at all relateable to Experience.

If all of your endeavor in this life is pointed toward another one after death, then it is you who is wasting time. I'd say you're going to be disappointed, except you won't be. Being, y'know, dead and all.

And what in the world does the veracity of biological evolution have to do with your hope of life after death, anyway?

I am leaving as I finish with some closing points. I realize that I had not responded properly to #301

#301 phantomreader42 said: Once again, your "sources" are lying to you. One particularly interesting example of a beneficial, additive mutation occurring in a living creature (which your "sources" have told you is impossible) is of bacteria that gained the ability to metabolize nylon, opening up an entirely new food source. This change was the result of a point insertion mutation, the addition of a single base pair. This actually happened, the genes of both the original and mutant strains have been analyzed, it IS an addition. And no matter how many times your "sources" lie about it, it won't change the facts.

I say: This is still working with "existing information" is it not? Bacteria becoming immune or even an immunity to the AIDS virus is still not "IN MY POINT OF VIEW" anything truly new.

Point of view my friend, POINT OF VIEW! However, you still choose to argue the point.

#348: What could be sloppier about faith? Faith is faith... hope and belief in the things not seen.

Faith is belief or trust in something (including devotion) to something without any logical substantial proof.
It is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not yet seen.

The whole premise of evolutionism is subject to this very bases since we cannot find the transitional fossils that led one species to the next. We surmise all this and tell ourselves that indeed this very evidence is fleeting right before our eyes especially when we can see the resemblance between monkeys and man. BUT WHERE IS THE TANGIBLE EVIDENCE MY FRIEND? And if you really think they are there, than you need to take a closer look again. THEY ARE NOT! Again, this is a good example of the fine line drawn between POINTS OF VIEW.

Therefore, (without tangible evidence) and while not even realizing it, evolutionism is a RELIGION unto itself which is based off of FAITH (things hoped for, not seen, but believed).

Without morality, it can destroy the whole human society. Its not just merely about life-after-death it can also spell the havoc for society. There would be crimes, killings, lying cheating, steeling... ext...

Nerd of Redhead said: God doesn't exist, which makes religion and faith irrelevant. You won't get the last word, so quit trying.

I say: You wouldn't have said that if you were one of the 6 million years who witnessed G-d's thunderous speaking firsthand at Mount Sinai. THIS IS AN ENTIRE NATION. It is called a NATIONAL REVELATION! And it is documented in the Torah as an eye-witness to this event.

The whole premise of evolutionism is subject to this very bases since we cannot find the transitional fossils that led one species to the next. We surmise all this and tell ourselves that indeed this very evidence is fleeting right before our eyes especially when we can see the resemblance between monkeys and man. BUT WHERE IS THE TANGIBLE EVIDENCE MY FRIEND? And if you really think they are there, than you need to take a closer look again. THEY ARE NOT!

I say: You wouldn't have said that if you were one of the 6 million years who witnessed G-d's thunderous speaking firsthand at Mount Sinai. THIS IS AN ENTIRE NATION. It is called a NATIONAL REVELATION! And it is documented in the Torah as an eye-witness to this event.

Currious, you are getting more incoherant as time goes on. The earth is 4 billion years old, give or take. Life evolved here on earth with needing divine interference. You god is imaginary. People define what is moral and not, and have been doing it as long a humans have been around.

You wouldn't have said that if you were one of the 6 million years who witnessed G-d's thunderous speaking firsthand at Mount Sinai. THIS IS AN ENTIRE NATION. It is called a NATIONAL REVELATION! And it is documented in the Torah as an eye-witness to this event.

Bwahahahaha!

6 million whoozits? Moses was the only one who heard the Big Guy, everybody else was gettin' busy with the golden calf, and looking nervously up at the storm cloud, right? You do realize that the people of Judea were polytheists at this time, and that there is no such thing as the Torah until Ezra came out of Babylon, in the 5th Century BCE? Do you believe every piece of fiction written from an ostensible point of view is actually the account of an eye-witness? If not, why do you give the anthologized myths and legends of Judean bandits and goat-herders privileged status?

With Moses on the Exodus? Wandering in the desert. Six. Million. People. Holy shit, you are cracked.

Look into the archaeology of the region. There is no evidence of ANY habitation in the time-frame required by Exodus at ANY of the sites mentioned by name. 6 million people simply cannot camp out in a freakin' desert without leaving a pretty serious pile of trash. (And of course that number is entirely fabricated anyway. No credible estimate of the population of Iron Age Judea comes anywhere near even that order of magnitude.)

Wow Currious turned out to be a complete moron. Here I was thinking he would have learned something. And now Randy is going to infect my blog by posting comments there? Shit. This thread hasn't turned out well for me.

The whole premise of evolutionism is subject to this very bases since we cannot find the transitional fossils that led one species to the next.

It's actually a joke in my household, some guy who said to me there are no transitional fossils. So every time we are watching a science documentary one of us says "there are no transitional fossils" in a sarcastic manner. It's sad that this creationist doesn't look at the evidence. Watch the two videos I posted.

Now that is what I like to see! You guys scrambling to check Biblical scripture (I bet it just kills you to do so).

Perhaps learning something arent you?

You are correct Patricia! It was not 6 millions Jews at Mt. Sinai, (I thought I would test your ineptness) rather it has been estimated somewhere around 3 million. Though nobody really knows for sure since the Torah does not completely specify a complete number of Jews, rather it only tells us that it was an ENTIRE PEOPLE that heard G-d speak at Mount Sinai, experiencing national revelation. G-d did not just appear to Moses in a private rendezvous, but to an entire nation of people. This claim is mentioned many times in the Torah.

[Moses told the Israelite's]: Only beware for yourself and greatly beware for your soul, lest you forget the things that your eyes have beheld. Do not remove this memory from your heart all the days of your life. Teach your children and your children's children about the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horev [Mount Sinai]...

G-d spoke to you from the midst of the fire, you were hearing the sound of words, but you were not seeing a form, only a sound. He told you of His covenant, instructing you to keep the Ten Commandments, and He inscribed them on two stone tablets.' (Deut.4:9-13)

You have been shown in order to know that G-d, He is the Supreme Being. There is none besides Him. From heaven he let you hear His voice in order to teach you, and on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words amid the fire. (Deut. 4:32-36)

Moses called all of Israel and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the decrees and the ordinances that I speak in your ears today - learn them, and be careful to perform them. The Lord your G-d sealed a covenant with us at Horev [Mount Sinai]. Not with our forefathers did God seal this covenant, but with us - we who are here, all of us alive today. Face to face did G-d speak with you on the mountain from amid the fire. (Deut. 5:1-4)

Point of view my friend, POINT OF VIEW! However, you still choose to argue the point.

Creationism and evolution are not points of view, one is a fairy tale, the other is based on empirical science. Mutation has been observed, natural selection has been observed, speciation has been observed. New features have been observed. Evolution is science, creationism is what retards cling to because they either don't know better or don't want to know better.

I was hoping you would notice the difference between my argument and the monkey at the type writer argument. Its not the same.

Yeah, your argument is the opposite of the monkey at a typewriter. Instead of getting to that information over time, it's about that information being lost. But it seems you can't grasp my argument that DNA isn't specified information like language is so what you say can't apply.

Currious, thank you for the supplying source of the numbers. However, your imaginary god doesn't exist, your bible was written from oral history many years after the events, and it was written by humans. So we are less than impressed when you try to quote the document as being a reliable source.

There were 3 million Jews wandering in the desert for 40 years? So why if there was a population that large is there not a shred of archaeological evidence to support the exodus? Why is there not a shred of archaeological evidence to support that they were once Egyptian slaves? Why is there not archaeological evidence to support the 10 plagues? And why the fuck would anyone worship a deity that ensured that the plagues would end in infanticide? This is supposed to be a loving God?

I want to know why almost none of the bible matches to the archaeological evidence we find.
I guess believers think of archaeology the same as they find natural science. If it don't match, it's because of the incompetence of science. And what is evidence anyway? The bible is evidence and that's all that matters.

You guys scrambling to check Biblical scripture (I bet it just kills you to do so).
Perhaps learning something arent you?

Smug little prick. There are regular posters on this site whose knowledge of scripture puts your feeble cut and paste exercise to shame. That's knowledge of scripture: its history and interpretation. You know, intellectually honest scholarship, as opposed to the credulous recitation that only passes for knowledge among the ignorant, the deluded, and the liars.

Currious: What could be sloppier about faith? Faith is faith... hope and belief in the things not seen. Faith is belief or trust in something (including devotion) to something without any logical substantial proof.

I suspect equivocation on the nature of "proof". The word is from the Latin "probare", meaning to test. In science, hypotheses are proven by testing against each other for "best" describing the current set of evidence.

Currious: The whole premise of evolutionism is subject to this very bases since we cannot find the transitional fossils that led one species to the next.

Presumes that the "transitional" fossils you think are needed are required for proof. This is incorrect; formally, proof only requires correctness on the current set of evidence. This does mean that what the "proven theory" is may evolve, based on (a) new evidence, shifting the balance, or (b) a new hypothesis previously unconsidered. This potentially allows for the supplanting of evolution or the discovery that your brain really is a piece of cauliflower; however, neither alternative is "valid" until suggested and supported as "best".

Currious: BUT WHERE IS THE TANGIBLE EVIDENCE MY FRIEND?

You added an "R" there. Chromosome 2 is the most piece of evidence closest to "smoking gun". However, every piece of evidence from biology is relateable to other pieces via the theory of evolution... so, "in every known living thing" seems the answer to your question.

Currious: Again, this is a good example of the fine line drawn between POINTS OF VIEW.

No, this is an example of your failure to understand the principle of Minimum Message Length Induction as a basis of competitive testing, and that it is formally proven correct (in the mathematical sense) under the primary premises that Logic (EG: Wolfram's Axiom) is valid for philosophical inference, that jointwise affirmation of the Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms is self-consistent, and that Reality is at all relateable to Experience. Such testing is a form of proof, which distinguishes the propositions so tested as Inference and not as Faith.

What you seem to be referring to as a "point of view" appears analogous to a hypothesis, where a conjecture is used to describe how elements within a data set are interrelated. Such hypotheses can be tested for probability of correctness, via MMLI. Science does such testing; evolution holds the title belt as Theory, creationism doesn't. Evolution is not based on Faith, but on Inference.

Currious: Therefore, (without tangible evidence) and while not even realizing it, evolutionism is a RELIGION unto itself which is based off of FAITH (things hoped for, not seen, but believed).

First, the only points of Faith involved are those I've listed:
1) Logic (formally, either the Boolean, Robbins, or Wolfram axiom expression) is valid for inference
2) Joint affirmation of ZF is self-consistent
3) Reality is relateable to Experience (evidence).
All other points at hand are not Faith, but Inference by means of such Faith from evidence.

Second, disputing these points of Faith is not challenging evolution alone, but challenging all of science.

Third, while science may be on its way to becoming a religion, it isn't one yet. While the exact demarcation is disputed, the usual criteria in religious studies are having moral teachings, sacred scriptures, and holy rituals. Star Trek has these; it is a religion. Science at present lacks these; it is not.

And once again you are wrong. The entire congregation did not hear gawd speak.

They were forbidden to touch Mt Sinai under punishment of death. They heard thundering and moved back from the mountain. I'm not going to give you the book and verses on it, since I'm sure you must already know. Liar.

You are bearing false witness against gawd, a holy prophet, and the children of Israel. Have fun in hell.

His argument in a nutshell
1. Ignore evidence
2. Conclude there is no evidence
3. Since faith is believing without evidence, evolution must be a religion
4. Therefore my point of view is jsut as valid as there
5. I have God on my side
Therefore: Creationism happened

Curious, you dumbass!!! when i said that "this is an attack on sanity", i was referring to nutjobs like you!
BTW, who the hell cares about what was written in some book written by Moses thousands of years ago. When moses wrote all this stuff down supposedly, thjis was 500 years before the nation of Isreal was a literate one. think about that! And what the hell does this have to do with entropy?!

If you want to talk about God then talk about why Jesus is a liar! it is mentioned in the book of John, chapter 10 i believe. and Yehweh isn't a proper name, it means "mind your own damn busines." "I am as i am" what a crock! And you wanna know what else? his Real name is El, the God of the canaanites at the time of Abraham.

there was a show on the history channel called "Decoding Exodu" and it explains a great deal of what you call attention to Kel. They were slaves, but not anywhere near the time of Ramses II. that esitmate is off by like 1,500 years. and 40 isn't a real number, it is symbolic, like the 40 days of Jesus in the wilderness, the 40 days of rain in Genesis, ect. alot of numbers in the Bible are like that.

By the way, can we get back to the issue at hand? entropy has nothing to do with biblical literalism, as newton said, he saw thaty Nature was a book of god's revelationa as well, of the same caliber as the Bible. He was wrong, but only because he lived in the wrong place and time. his point about taking the natural laws seriously is something that needs to be hammered into the heads of all these xians(i love that term, it's so derisive!) and ID wackos

Patricia, wow! Nice fangs! hahaha. I couldn't agree with you more. and might i add that you are very attractive as well lol? Sometimes it's worth letting idiots have a say simply to watch them get beaten with the stupid stick (not the ugly stick, but similar)

The Judeans were never slaves in Egypt. There may be elements in Exodus drawn legendary tales of the expulsion of the Hyskos from Egypt.

Essentially nothing in the Hebrew Bible is history (as opposed to orally transmitted myth and legend) until you get to the Deuteronomic History, and even then, it's political propaganda using the names and exaggerated deeds of dimly remembered near-legendary figures like David and Solomon.

Kel, keep telling Randy he is so brilliant that he shouldhas share his findings with us scientists by publishing in a respectable peer reviewed journal. Since he knows he is full of shit, this will drive him crazy.

True, I'll even point him in the direction of the Tempeton Foundation. Why if he has a great idea that can bring down evolution is he arguing with a Computer Science graduate? Shouldn't he be writing into peer reviewed journals, contacting biology departments, and pushing his idea onto those that matter? I'm a nobody with no say on whether evolution is correct or not, I merely echo what I learn from actual biologists who have far more training and understanding of the processes than I do.

But fuck, if I can see he is full of shit then he has no hope. His ideas are fundamentally wrong at the core, it's both a pervasion to natural science and to information theory. As a computer science person thingy, I won't stand for him misrepresenting the scope of information theory.

Kel, i was harrassing Randy at his own blog. i suggect you guys do the same. Unfortunately, he is "too busy" to talk to me there one on one, but he thinks he'll make time for you on yours? what an idiot
CJO, you didn't look into it very far:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_origins_of_the_Hyksos
it says that the hyksos were from canaan, so yes, the judeans

Kel, Randy just wants to play rhetorical games. Then he can declare victory. By not playing those games you frustrate him. He will go away.

I'll keep that in mind. Given it's my blog, I would like my responses to seem somewhat dignified and informative, and for it not to descend into a exercise in poo-flinging. I really don't want to get my hands dirty.

Kel, i was harrassing Randy at his own blog. i suggect you guys do the same.

Fuck it, it's a waste of time. If he can't grasp that any detrimental mutation would not be able to be passed on, then he has no hope.

This thread is pretty much scorched earth by this point, but if Currrrrious is still around, then I have a question: why do you keep omitting the vowel from "God"? Does it have something to do with that prohibition of using the Lord's name in vain? Do you know what "in vain" means (which I ask not only because you seem to be censoring his name indiscriminately, but I'm truly curious myself)? And finally, a god being that insists that you can't say his name either at all or only in certain narrow circumstances: doesn't that strike you as rather petty and immature behavior?

Looks like you have made another false assumption --detrimental mutations often are passed on. There are over 4000 known inherited genetic disorders.

And how many of those manifest before reproduction? Yes there are plenty of genetic disorders, it doesn't mean they are ultimately detrimental to the species survival. Reproduction is the key event that matters. Evolution is not a race to perfection, it's a survival of the genes. Genetic disorders that don't impede survival simply don't matter.

That genetic disorders that affect people later in life aren't detrimental to the survival of the species. Most people have children early on in life, before they are 35 or so. If a genetic disorder doesn't hit until later in life, then there's no problem of reproduction. If the person with a genetic disorder has successful offspring then what's the problem?

Rickroll,
Yes, the Hyskos were a Semitic people, but "Judean" is a specific group of people. Clearly, going back to the early Bronze Age, we're not going to find much clarity on who claimed to be from where originally, and the problem is compounded by the fact that such claims amounted to claims on the land and so were political. But no scholar, to my knowledge, avers that the people who came to be known as the tribes of Israel were the direct descendents of the Hyskos. So no, not Judean. Semitic.

Randy, if you don't lie, you would be publishing in a peer reviewed scientific journal. And you know that. If you post something here, I presume it to be a lie until you back it up with a citation from the scientific literature. This is partially a science blog. In science, the burden of proof is always on those making the claims, in this case you. So cite your source from the scientific literature for your argument, or go away.

Randy, if you don't lie, you would be publishing in a peer reviewed scientific journal.

Yeah Randy, why aren't you posting in a scientific journal? Why are you coming to the masses with your idea as opposed to fighting it out in academia? This is not peer review, and if you are using it as such take the hint that not a single person who understands evolution or information theory can see any merit in your idea.

well CJO, i default. i guess i'll just have to take your word for it then. in addition to the relaease of canaanite slaves, Decoding Exodus also makes metnion more than once of greek hyksos. if that were to be incorrect, then i wouldn't have to think that anything else that the program stated was factual either. I guess i just assumed that the History Channel would have got it right. Maybe not. I still find the historical analysis of Yehweh to be deeply compelling however, which was a separate program altogether.

Wait, wait wait patricia, hold on.... You telling me that Randy THREATENED to leave the blog, and you stopped him?

No Rickroll - I HOPE he threatens to leave the blog like most other trolls do.

If what you say, Randy, is proven, a fact and not a lie, then why haven't you submitted it to peer reviewed papers? If you can prove the existence of god, surely the world will bow to you, and we heathens will be proven wrong.

The point that I was making was that quite a few detrimental genetic disorders are inherited. You seem to be arguing that they are not.

Of course they are inherited. We can see them being passed down the line. What I'm arguing is that if the genetic disorder was a problem for the species, then it would not make it through the reproductive cycle.

"No doubt some of your cousins and great-uncles died in childhood, but not a single one of your ancestors did. Ancestors just don't die young!" - Richard Dawkins

If one of you guys (like Kel) says something stupid

For someone who can't grasp that information theory doesn't prevent evolution, I wouldn't be throwing the word stupid around. Why don't you watch that first youtube video I posted and tell us how that could have come about without common ancestry?

If one of you guys (like Kel) says something stupid I am wondering if PZ will step in with valid information.

You've said nothing but stupid things, and PZ hasn't stepped in. The difference between you and me Randy is I understand I'm not a biologist. That's why all I do is echo what biologists and biochemists say, I don't know better and I don't pretend to.

You on the other hand are trying to prove the scientists wrong and you are doing so by posting on this blog. The scientific process is open to anyone, but the peer review process is where it takes place. Posting on here is nothing but a game of mental manipulation, that even if you were right all you are doing is wasting your effort on people who have no say on the outcome. Submit your ideas for peer review, test them out in academia rather than in this faux-intellectual exchange.

By the way, I think using the word "mutation" to describe changes to DNA isn't the best choice. The very word seems to imply that all changes to DNA are negative. It might be preferable to talk about random modifications and non-randon modifications.

Recombination is the most dramatic modification that we see in DNA and I would consider that non-random modification.

"God made those anencephalics in his own image." HOLY SHIT, that's sick and twisted!

"A partial answer to that is that they are both forms of information." Dammit Randy, EVERYTHING is a from of information. you don't know anything about quantum mechanics either i suppose!

"Rickr0ll. Are you trying to Molly Award or what?" Nope, i'm just a tenacious son of a bitch! By the way, isn't there a picture of it? like so the winner can totally pimp their ID? so that it would show up to all your comments? that would be Sweeeeet.

John. I wasn't being indignant. I was asking a sincere question. I may get sassy at times forget to stick my tonque out like this :P so that you know I am kidding but I am never indignant. I really would like to know what is going throught Patricia's head.

Also, I am not a Christian so I don't assume that God is all knowing and can create a perfect design. All things designed have flaws. My frickin pressure washer blew up today and reminded me of that. But even if some designed things didn't have flaws they would still acquire flaws due to entropy.

Rickr0ll, if you see an OM after the name of a poster here, it generally means, to use John Cleese's expression, "somebody who's so smart I'd be scared to open my mouth in his or her presence". Not all winners care to use the honorific, however.

But even if some designed things didn't have flaws they would still acquire flaws due to entropy

Um. Earlier @307, you wrote "If you think of entropy only in terms of thermodynamics then there isn't much of a connection. Think instead of how entropy applies to information", but now you're referring to thermodynamic entropy (i.e. the physical mechanism of duplication).
Oddly enough, computer hardware is also subject to entropy, and it copies information, and we use error-correction to adjust for this.

i have seen that. neat. i would rather change my name after winningl; Rickr0ll is just a meme i stole from morsec0de, the polite athiest lol (note the 0, which he wears on his head in most of his Youtube videos, cus he's in OSU)
sorry i'm not saying anything pertinent right now, but when Randy wants to take this seriously, i will

well, it's a zero people. i'm not an idiot, trust me. well, i guess since i haven't noticed it, that doesn't help me... why am i writing all of this?
so Randy, gonna continue to ignore the whole article or what? If you want to charm us with your personality, you are generally speaking not supposed to let us on to the fact that you are a greasy weazel Before you try being nice.

Seth Lloyd and Rudy Rucker both are computer programmers, and they don't see that there's some "issue" with evolution. I have thier books to prove it. Programming the Universe, and The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, respectively.

Randy, you're saying the error-correction in the genome copying algorithm is even worse than existing human error-correction codes? Hm.

I wasn't saying that. But that's a good question. I read somewhere that there is something like 1 copy error per billion nucleotides copied. Or maybe it was 2 or 3. Something like that. I am not sure how reliably we can transmitt information these days. But DNA copying happens in a much harsher environment. It's amazing how accurate it is.

A partial answer to that is that they are both forms of information. And information that is subject to random modification eventually turns to nonsense.

The difference between DNA and code is that DNA is self-replicating. If the changes in DNA are good, then the organism survives and gives more offspring. If the changes ever are "nonsense", then it won't get passed on. If you wreck the code that makes our lungs, then you can damn well be sure that person won't survive to reproduce. Nonsense won't get passed on, it's that simple. Any offspring that has code that means they will have severe heart defects will be weeded out by natural selection. You just can't pass on nonsense, it's that simple.

How do you expect an offspring that has severe problems to reproduce?!?

So, Mr Stimpson aka Intelligent Designer, what concrete evidence do you have to demonstrate that life is intelligently designed, and what laboratory experiments have you done to verify your claims? Furthermore, if the countless flaws and imperfections seen in living organisms and organelles were made due to accumulated errors on these designers' part, to say nothing of the fact that many biochemical processes are structured exactly like extremely byzantine Rube Goldberg devices, why should we even consider them to be "intelligent" in the first place?

the article Randy, is the one that the post consists of. Duh. What really irks me is that for all your blustering, you have utterly failed to use any kind of science to back up your claims. all you are doing is arguing.
My identity is unimportant :P I might be a college proffesor of Anthropology for all you know.

A partial answer to that is that they are both forms of information. And information that is subject to random modification eventually turns to nonsense.

The difference between DNA and code is that DNA is self-replicating. If the changes in DNA are good, then the organism survives and gives more offspring. If the changes ever are "nonsense", then it won't get passed on. If you wreck the code that makes our lungs, then you can damn well be sure that person won't survive to reproduce. Nonsense won't get passed on, it's that simple. Any offspring that has code that means they will have severe heart defects will be weeded out by natural selection. You just can't pass on nonsense, it's that simple.

How do you expect an offspring that has severe problems to reproduce?!?

Of course, then there is the problem that many genetic disorders arise de novo due to accidents during gametogenesis within the gonads of the parents.

But even if some designed things didn't have flaws they would still acquire flaws due to entropy

The contention here is whether the "flaws" are detrimental. Our system not only can handle change in code, but for evolution to work it is required. A mutation to a vital component of the system is fatal, but that won't be passed on. But if it's not to a vital part of the system and doesn't affect the survival chance, then what is the problem? If someone survives to pass on their genetic code to their offspring, then their code is still a valid survival machine.We don't have a design on which to decay, shannon entropy is talking about set specified information. DNA is not set specified information in that manner. Your genetic code and my genetic code are different by about 3,000,000 characters. Now which of us is nonsense? Are we not both survival machines? Have we not both reached the age where we can have children? At your age, I'm sure you've already had children and thus your DNA was successful. I have yet to sow my seed, but I'm still young and there is time. Maybe I won't get a chance too, that I didn't have what it takes to pass on my offspring or I choose not to. I'm still young, I have time. But the fact is that if any of my children have bad errors, or "nonsense" in their code, then they won't survive. It's already happened to two of my siblings, and 5 potential siblings. But me and my two other siblings have survived long enough to be potential parents (well my youngest sibling is only a teenager but he technically still could).The point is that you can't get to nonsense because there are certain parts in your code that need to stay as they are in order for reproduction to occur. There are other parts that can change freely that aren't essential to our survival. If they change, so what? That's what your mistaking, that all you can do is have a code go to nonsense. You don't, you have a code that can change and does change. Some of those changes bring about advantageous traits, some cause problems. Most are neutral and have no bearing on our survival abilities.

I agree that natural selection is one of many ways to weed out negative modifications to DNA. The point of my post at #318 is that random modifications to information are zillions of times more likely to be harmful than benificial.

It would take a lot of lucky modifications to create a new feature in a lifeform -- and before all those lucky modifications could co-exist they would be clobbered by unlucky ones.

I agree that natural selection is one of many ways to weed out negative modifications to DNA. The point of my post at #318 is that random modifications to information are zillions of times more likely to be harmful than benificial.

Yes, there are more harmful mutations than beneficial. But that doesn't matter. There are far far more neutral mutations than detrimental. You should check out CDK007's video on this matter.

It would take a lot of lucky modifications to create a new feature in a lifeform

No, it just takes an evolutionary arms race or a niche to fill. Remember that the time scales we are talking about are millions of years, hundreds of thousands of generations. Enough change over enough time on a smallish population will eventually lead to speciation. And once you have speciation then there can be no more interchange of genetic code and variation will accumulate.

S'okay, I'll give instructions even an idiot could follow: scroll up to my previous comment (#477) and point your mouse at the blue part and click the left mouse button. That will make the screen in front of your face display something called an "abstract" from a "journal article", in Information Theory Workshop, 2008. ITW '08. IEEE.

Well actually I might not have time to read that book. Kel wants me to watch a bunch you YouTube videos, Rickroll wants me to read talk origins and a couple of wikipedia articles and learn some quantum mechanics. Nerd of Redhead want me to write something in a peer reviewed journal. Santon wants me to do some labratory experiments. I just don't know what to do first. Maybe you guys should get together prioritize my todo list :P

The videos are only 10 minutes each and cover exactly what you are talking about.

If you want to inform yourself watch the videos and read the articles. If you want your idea to be taken seriously (i.e. you think you have a clue) present your findings in academia through peer review.

We have, as I'm sure most people know, 46 chromosomes in our human cells. That means we have 23 pairs of chromosomes because you get 23 from mom and you get 23 from dad, so we've all got 46 total. We've got 23 pairs.Now, the curious thing about the great apes is they have more. They have, as you can see from the slide, 48 chromosomes, which means they have 24 pairs. Now, what that means, Mr. Walczak, is that you and I, in a sense, are missing a chromosome, we're missing a pair of chromosomes. And the question is, if evolution is right about this common ancestry idea, where did the chromosome go?Now, there's no possibility that that common ancestry which would have had 48 chromosomes because the other three species have 48, there's no possibility the chromosome could have just got lost or thrown away. Chromosome has so much genetic information on it that the loss of a whole chromosome would probably be fatal. So that's not a hypothesis.Therefore, evolution makes a testable prediction, and that is, somewhere in the human genome we've got to be able to find a human chromosome that actually shows the point at which two of these common ancestors were pasted together. We ought to be able to find a piece of Scotch tape holding together two chromosomes so that our 24 pairs -- one of them was pasted together to form just 23. And if we can't find that, then the hypothesis of common ancestry is wrong and evolution is mistaken.Go to the next slide. Now, the prediction is even better than that. And the reason for that is chromosomes themselves have little genetic markers in their middles and on their ends. They have DNA sequences, which I've highlighted in here, called telomeres that exist on the edges of the chromosomes.Then they have special DNA sequences at the center called centromeres, which I've highlighted in red. Centromeres are really important because that's where the chromosomes are separated when a cell divides. If you don't have a centromere, you're in really big trouble.Now, if one of our chromosomes, as evolution predicts, really was formed by the fusion of two chromosomes, what we should find is in that human chromosome, we should find those telomere sequences which belong at the ends, but we should find them in the middle. Sort of like the seam at which you've glued two things together, it should still be there.And we should also find that there are two centromeres, one of which has, perhaps, been inactivated in order to make it convenient to separate this when a cell divides. That's a prediction. And if we can't find it in our genome, then evolution is in trouble.Next slide. Well, lo and behold, the answer is in Chromosome Number 2. This is a paper that -- this is a facsimile of a paper that was published in the British journal Nature in 2004. It's a multi-authored paper. The first author is Hillier, and other authors are listed as et al. And it's entitled, The Generation and Annotation of the DNA Sequences of Human Chromosomes 2 and 4.And what this paper shows very clearly is that all of the marks of the fusion of those chromosomes predicted by common descent and evolution, all those marks are present on human Chromosome Number 2.Would you advance the slide. And I put this up to remind the Court of what that prediction is. We should find telomeres at the fusion point of one of our chromosomes, we should have an inactivated centromere and we should have another one that still works.And you'll note -- this is some scientific jargon from the paper, but I will read part of it. Quote, Chromosome 2 is unique to the human lineage of evolution having emerged as a result of head-to-head fusion of two acrocentric chromosomes that remain separate in other primates. The precise fusion site has been located, the reference then says exactly there, where our analysis confirmed the presence of multiple telomere, subtelomeric duplications. So those are right there.And then, secondly, during the formation of human chromosome 2, one of the two centromeres became inactivated, and the exact point of that inactivation is pointed out, and the chromosome that is inactivated in us -- excuse me, the centromere that is inactivated in us turns out to correspond to primate Chromosome Number 13.So the case is closed in a most beautiful way, and that is, the prediction of evolution of common ancestry is fulfilled by that led-pipe evidence that you see here in terms of tying everything together, that our chromosome formed by the fusion from our common ancestor is Chromosome Number 2. Evolution has made a testable prediction and has passed.How else can you explain our fused chimp chromosome without common ancestry?

I doesn't matter how many billions of years go by. Lucky modifications will continue to be overwhelmed by like harmful modifications.

No they won't, if you would only inform yourself about how natural selection works then you would see that it's not a problem. Natural selection weeds out the bad mutations. Watch the CDK007 video and see how it works, he uses computer simulations of fitness to show how negative mutations get weeded out.

Ok. It's midnight here in Seattle. I should go to bed so that I can be alert enough to do decent work tomorrow. Good night.

Kel, I think we should make a bargin. I'll take the time to watch those you tube videos if you take the time to download the application I've been working on and try it out. http://www.prtracker.com That's my business website.

Kel, I think we should make a bargin. I'll take the time to watch those you tube videos if you take the time to download the application I've been working on and try it out.

If you don't want to watch the videos and remain ignorant of how the process works, fine. Don't let me stop you. Just don't preach that it can't happen when there is information out there detailing how it can and does happen. This issue is not going to be won or lost on your ability to argue, it comes down to the evidence. If you are just going to ignore it and claim that information theory that has no relevance to the type of information DNA is invalidates evolution, you are going to continue to remain wrong and mocked by those who know better.

Randy, I've had to question your intelligence before, but leaving your business site at a place like this, saying the things you've said... well, that just isn't safe. Hopefully no one will destroy it while you sleep.

Kel wants me to watch a bunch you YouTube videos, Rickroll wants me to read talk origins and a couple of wikipedia articles and learn some quantum mechanics. Nerd of Redhead want me to write something in a peer reviewed journal. Santon wants me to do some labratory experiments. I just don't know what to do first. Maybe you guys should get together prioritize my todo list

Rickroll: as newton said, he saw thaty Nature was a book of god's revelationa as well, of the same caliber as the Bible

Arguably, of higher caliber. From a religious viewpoint, the universe is the direct handiwork of God without mundane intermediaries, while Bibles and Q'rans are copies made via human means.

Randy Simpson: And information that is subject to random modification eventually turns to nonsense.

Unless, of course, the errors occur in a process of duplication, and there are selective pressures to eliminate nonsensical copies.

Kel: The point is that you can't get to nonsense because there are certain parts in your code that need to stay as they are in order for reproduction to occur

No, you can get to that kind of nonsense. You can even "get" to nonsense that is intrinsically fatal. It's just that such nonsenses tend to be self-eliminating over (possibly very short) time.

Of course, some nonsense is close enough to sense to work for quite a while.

Kel: How else can you explain our fused chimp chromosome without common ancestry?

1) Chance; odds of approximately one in 2^(10^9), IIR.
2) Design... which, however, requires evidence of purpose to "independently" creating either the ape or the human species so similar to the other. Without specifying the design's purpose, the claim of design is meaningless. Without evidence to support a specific purpose, odds are the same as chance. And even then, since the design process is an evolutionary competitive selection of variations (see historian George Basalla's book "The Evolution of Technology"), the mechanism of the purpose must be distinguished, and a probability established under present evidence relative to ordinary evolutionary mechanisms.

Well actually I might not have time to read that book. Kel wants me to watch a bunch you YouTube videos, Rickroll wants me to read talk origins and a couple of wikipedia articles and learn some quantum mechanics. Nerd of Redhead want me to write something in a peer reviewed journal. Santon wants me to do some labratory experiments. I just don't know what to do first. Maybe you guys should get together prioritize my todo list

Priority 1: Stop being a disingenuous lying moron. This is absolutely critical.

Priority 2: Learn something about biology. You think you understand genetics, population dynamics, cellular biology, and evolution, and you obviously don't.

Priority 3: Learn something about thermodynamics. You think you understand entropy, and you obviously don't.

Priority 4: Learn something about the intersection of biology with information theory. You think you understand biostatistics and probability, and you obviously don't.

In fact, not a single event from the Book of Exodus has been corroborated by archaeology, and as this section has argued, this cannot be considered a problem with archaeology. Most sites that archaeologists have determined to have been unoccupied at the supposed time of the Exodus show abundant evidence of occupation from both earlier and later periods. Surveys that easily track the movements of much smaller bands of nomadic people from much earlier than biblical times find no trace of a vast migration across the desert. Sites that are easily determined to have been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times earlier, in the Early Bronze Age, or later, in the Iron Age, show no sign of disturbance or even occupation at the time the Israelites are supposed to have been destroying them.

I don't think so bub. You can get close to -273.15Deg.C with
cryocoolers, but as far as I know 700nK is about the coldest
temp. produced. So how do you get to zero k in an open system?

You make a Bose-Einstein condensate, which has 0 K. The trick is you can't get all atoms in your sample to join the condensate; some stay outside and carry the remaining heat energy, and that's why the temperature of the whole thing is given as micro- or nanokelvins.

True, people say 0.0 Kelvin, but the scale is based on the Celsius scale, so to me it sounds like saying " the temperature is 79F." Six of one and half dozen of the other

So what? It's called "degrees Celsius", but "Kelvin". :-|

Without the salvation that comes from the death of god's alter ego and sacrificial lamb* Jesus, modern Christians have no link to god, so evolution, which shows Adam and Eve and their subsequent offspring could not have existed, pretty much removes the reason for their faith.

Naaah. You've overlooked the Catholic way out of this: having evolved from mere animals, we have a sinful nature and do too need salvation. Never misundreshtmate the ability of Catholic theologians to wrap their theology around anything.

To a Biblical literalist, common descent and an old Earth both mean god didn't do what he said he did.

Indeed.

Does the synthesis of macromolecules, using energy resulting from ATP pathways, actually result in an increase in entropy? I've not bothered calculating (although my students may be doing that as a review today just so I can see the results), but it seems that this wouldn't be the case.

In the process, countless molecules of ATP get cleaved into ADP and P. This increases entropy, because instead of one molecule there are now two that can move around at random. And the preceding buildup of ATP also increases entropy, because it involves turning glucose and oxygen (one big and a few small molecules) into carbon dioxide and water (lots of small molecules). You can't win, and you can't break even :-)

Can someone please explain to me why if we have increased entropy such as in digestion or metabolism that in the long run we still end up eventually dying?

Murphy's Law: our repair processes tend not to keep up forever.

How could such processes create evolution? And why aren't we "positively" seeing it?

What do you mean? We are seeing it. What does "'positively'" mean?

I would consider a human body to be a closed system in which nothing else can come in except for food and nutrients to sustain it

No, you don't get to define technical terms as you please. "Closed system" means "a system which matter can neither enter nor leave", and "isolated system" means "a system which neither matter nor energy can enter or leave", and entropy only has to increase in isolated systems.

I say: Okay, I have double checked with certain sources.

Websites by creationists who don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about, it seems.

I think it is you who is misinformed and uneducated on the subject. Yes, there are as you say deletions, duplications and rearrangements, but there are no "additions". These are just tandem repeats of the same existing information... THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION.

And then one of the duplicates starts mutating by substitution (or deletion perhaps). There you go.

Still nothing new is happening here (evolution wise).

See above: you were just one step away from noticing that this is wrong.

The word "mutation" is a scary undefined word.

Wrong. You have been too lazy to look up its definition -- that's what's going on here!

Only modifying what's there is called "natural selection".

Yet another term that you have been too lazy to look up the definition of!

For instance, it has been shown a simple change in gene activity in sea squirts can turn their one-chambered heart into a working two-chambered one. Surely this counts as increasing information?

I say: I am familiar with this, but what this article fails to tell us is that something like this does not happen naturally in nature (it has never been observed) only in a laboratory.

That's because laboratory air contains pixie dust, which works magic that cannot happen elsewhere, right? Right?

Logic: ur doin it rong.

For what hope have we left if evolutionary biology is correct. It would only serve to pull all our heavenly desires to a grinding hopeless halt.

The argument from consequences is a logical fallacy. And you're full of curry.

This is still working with "existing information" is it not? Bacteria becoming immune or even an immunity to the AIDS virus is still not "IN MY POINT OF VIEW" anything truly new.

Of course not. Nothing is ever truly new in evolution. :-)

"I am as i am" what a crock!

Not at all. It's just "I am/was/will be" in the imperfective aspect -- recall that Biblical Hebrew has no tenses, just the perfective and the imperfective aspect. "I am becoming" has been suggested as the best translation, and that would make a lot of sense...

The whole exodus story means Babylon when it says "Egypt". Saying "Babylon" would have been too obvious for something that was apparently written in Babylon during the Babylonian exile (which is well documented on Babylonian clay tablets).

Same as how the Book of the Revelation to John means Rome when it says "Babylon".

Pagination

Donate

ScienceBlogs is where scientists communicate directly with the public. We are part of Science 2.0, a science education nonprofit operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Please make a tax-deductible donation if you value independent science communication, collaboration, participation, and open access.

You can also shop using Amazon Smile and though you pay nothing more we get a tiny something.

More by this author

Wow. Every person on the planet saw one version or another of this "Octopolis" story and had to send it to me. It was the subject of a Friday Cephalopod a year ago, you know.
Apparently, this is the second octopus city discovered, which is interesting -- they're exhibiting more complex social…

First, a little background:
When squid mate, a male transfers its sperm to a female enclosed in complex structures called spermatophores. These are accumulated in the spermatophoric sac, a storage organ inside the mantle cavity, before ejaculation through the penis. Squid that spawn in shelf waters…

More reads

"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." -Werner Heisenberg
Looking down at the fundamental nature of matter, down past our cells and organelles, deep into the individual molecules and inside of the atoms that make them up, at long last, you get to things like the fundamental particles that make up all the known matter in the Universe.
Things like…

What's the best way for a lonely guy to get a date? If you're a Splendid Fairy-Wren (Malurus splendens, native to Australia), your best bet might be to frighten the object of your affection.
You've learned all about the birds and the bees; now it's time to learn from them.
Lots of research has shown that animals reduce their sexual behaviors when predators are around. After all, it isn't just…

SEE ONGOING UPDATES BELOW FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION
Tropical Depression Eleven is currently located way east of Florida, and is predicted to become a tropical storm by Tuesday night some time. It would be nameD Joaquin. Some time Wednesday night, the storm is predicted to turn north and head straight up along the coast. There are no significant advisories or suggestions of a threatening…